Results tagged “memories” from Debi's Journal

When you were little, or even last week, you probably sat and wondered how your life would be different if you had a different name. I remember going through a few years of school thinking Debbie was the stupidest name ever, and how it sucked that every class in school always had another Debbie in it. At one point I figured I could turn my middle name into a nickname, like Carrie or Carey or whatever, and go by that. Given that I rarely follow through with anything, that idea went *poof* quickly. However, I did manage to stick with changing the spelling of my nickname to Debi when I got my first personalized university email address (debi@...).

I was rather bemused when my own daughter began toying with the idea of changing her name back in 2nd grade. I think she has a pretty cool and unusual name, and most of the time she is in agreement with me, so when she announced that she needed a nickname that wasn't "Mel" or "Milopilo" or "Pilo" (and yes, she still answers to that last one), I asked her what other names she had in mind. "I want my nickname to be Caitlyn." "Huh? That's not even a nickname!" We squashed that idea that night. And by "we," I mean "I."

Fast forward to the 8th grade, where the name change spectre has raised its ugly head again. She wants to be called Dani now, which is a shortened version of her middle name, Danielle.

It's not unusual for people in our family to go by their middle names; I have two uncles and an aunt, plus Melody has a second cousin, who all go by their middle names. But I have to point out that every single one of them went by those names their entire lives. They didn't just decide in 8th grade that they would start doing so. Walter Eugene was always Gene. Delbert David was always Dave. Lauren Ashleigh was Ashleigh since before her actual birth. They didn't just change all of a sudden and expect everyone to respect their new identity.

I have faith that Mel has inherited my lack of follow-through and will abandon this idea by the time she returns from New York in January.

Dec. 23 Update: Gaaah. This appeared on Tiny Midget's Mel's MySpace page today:
 *TinY_MIdGEt<3 IM IN THE VERY SNOWY {1 foot} NEWYORK!!! I will post pics wen I get home they are very pretty X] well I AM SO BORED SO TEXT MEEEE!! [call me Danielle ;) <3 u

A couple of days ago I hopped into a LensCrafters at one of the local malls to quickly buy a pair of prescription sunglasses. I haven't been able to wear contact lenses for quite a few years now, because the last few pairs I wore scratched up my corneas and I was subsequently diagnosed with dry eyes. So up to now I was stuck wearing prescription glasses with Transitions lenses, which in reality don't look as cool as they make them look in their ads. My old Rayban sunglasses went into storage.

When Mel returned from spending the summer with her dad a couple of weeks ago, she had a couple of pairs of cheap knock-off fashion sunglasses with her. I tried one of them on. It looked cute, even stylish. I thought to myself, Gosh Darnit, I want real sunglasses again!

With a brand-new prescription in hand, my sister kindly drove me to the mall, and after about 15 minutes browsing in LensCrafters I found a pair of Raybans I really liked. Bang, Pow, Boom, I bought myself a pair and then went shopping for an hour, 'cos at LensCrafters, you get your glasses in an hour! Or something.

My sister and I were walking towards Macy's department store when we passed by a Hallmark Cards, which is when she said,

Do you remember E.R.? [using initials instead of real name here] The last time I was buying something at Hallmark's, I took out my Hallmark card, which still has my maiden name on it, and the checker asked me, "Are you Debbie P.?" and I responded, "No, I'm her sister B." She said she went to high school with us.

Yeah, I remember her. We had a few friends in common at the time. I'm usually surprised when someone actually remembers me after 20+ years because I consider myself pretty forgettable, plus I don't tend to remember people that I haven't seen in a while, or even sometimes people I met the week before.

We spent maybe half an hour in Macy's looking at shirts on sale, and while we were browsing we noticed an older woman walking past us a couple of times. My sister nodded towards her and said,

Do remember Mrs. Jenkins, our P.E. teacher in junior high? That's her. I've seen her several times recently in different places, and the last time I finally went up to her and asked if she was Mrs. Jenkins, and she said yes.

I remember having a P.E. teacher named Mrs. Jenkins, but I would never recognized that person who was walking in circles in the store, obviously exercising, as her. Around that moment I finally came to this realization: Pretty much every time I've run into a former teacher or fellow student somewhere, I was always with someone else who noticed that person and pointed him or her out to me, with my typical reaction being, "Oh yeah, I remember [that person]." If I had been by myself, you can bet I would never have noticed the person at all. A few years back when my sister and I were shopping at Big Lots we ran into our old high school math teacher, Mr. Plimley. It was my sister who nudged me and asked, "Isn't that Mr. Plimley?" and not the other way around. She even went up to him to say hello. I would have just ignored him, like I ignore the rest of the world. I blame it on ADD.