The Ramblings of a Mad Fangirl

tetroski:

dorksidefiker:

tetroski:

dorksidefiker:

tetroski:

dorksidefiker:

tetroski replied to your post: It’s a subject I’ve spoken on at length before…

Um. Would this be a bad time to say that I think your name is neat? I’ve never heard/read that version before—just “Katherine” or “Katrina”—and I really like it.

I have a love/hate relationship with my name.  I enjoy it’s uniqueness (and on happier days, I do in fact think it’s pretty).  Most of the kids I went to school with shared their name with at least one other classmate.  Also, I occasionally count my blessings that Dad talked Mom out of any even more unusual or embarrassing choices (I dodged being Sequoia because one of my father’s cousins ‘stole’ the name for his own daughter, and Galadrial was another Near-Miss).

I just with people would pronounce it right, without me having to correct them five times or more.

Yeah, that makes sense. Sometimes it seems like people don’t even try to get names right, even when you’ve just spent a minute or two clarifying the correct version. x) And I have to sincerely congratulate you for dodging “Sequoia.” (My mother narrowly missed being named “Fawn Dawn,” and she stills talks about how grateful she is.)

That would have been a truly unfortunate name.  I often find myself wondering just what the hell some people were thinking when they named their children.

Of course, this is tempered by the fact that on my father’s side, names are passed down like the family china (my brother, as mentioned elsewhere, shares his middle name with our deceased uncle, my father was named for his mother, my paternal grandfather’s generation still call HIM ‘Junior’, and a number of my cousins have a III and IV on their names)

Your family gets numbers?! Okay, that’s actually really cool and I’m a little jealous. And yeah, it’s kind of amazing—I like watching the credits after movies just to see some of the funky names people have. It was years ago, but I think I saw something like “Wild Fyre” once.

We get numbers, but we USE nicknames.  For example, we have Ernie (not Ernest, just Ernie), his son Ernie Jr (the guy who stole Sequoia), and his firstborn son, Ernie III.  The eldest is usually called Uncle Ernie by most of the family (or Dead Ernie).  Ernie Junior is thus Cousin Ernie (or, to his siblings, Brother), and Ernie III is Red.  And that’s just THEM.  I recall there being two other living Ernies, and knowing my family, there’s probably more by now.

My generation is the first one to really avoid that many hand-me-down names.  Of course, me and Sequoia get to pay the price for the family branching out, and judging from what I’ve heard, the hand-me-down names are gaining popularity again.  The ONLY reason my niece Rhiannon isn’t ‘Little Bob’ is because her mother didn’t like the name Roberta.

It sounds like your family tree is really extensive and interesting? My extended family (the people I know about, anyway) is limited to four sets of grandparents, two aunts, and a few sets of aunts/uncles/cousins, which I guess isn’t tiny but isn’t really huge, either—my point being that having a big extended family sounds cool. Depending on the people in it, I guess, since it’s not fun being related to people you don’t like, but the concept of it sounds really neat, anyway. :)

(Also, Little Bob is a cute nickname for a kid, but I’ll bet your niece’ll be really glad she dodged that when she gets older, if she isn’t already. x) )

It is on Dad’s side (which is terrifyingly huge and fully of people who refuse to die; I still have a living great-grandparent).  Mom’s side is a bit more of a mystery.  I know my maternal grandparents are both second generation German American, but they cut off all contact with their kin when my grandmother was 16, and refused to speak of what family they had when I was putting together my family tree.

Coming from a large Southern family has its pros and cons.  I love my kin, but I’m also very glad to live on the other side of the country from most of them.  They can be seriously overwhelming, but they were also a great comfort when we lost my father, and there’s this… connection to the past, I guess.  We’ve infested the Appalachian mountains as long as there have been white settlers in the area — longer, if you consider the ancestors who I strongly suspect were Native American (admittedly, this is largely supposition on the part of me and the other amateur genealogists in the family — people who came into the family with no history, during the depressingly long period where the government was doing everything could to stamp out the Native Americans by destroying their culture).  I know my mother has always kind of envied those roots, and I value them, even when my family is driving me nuts.

/end lecture

On the subject of ‘Little Bob’, Rhiannon doesn’t know about her near miss yet, but if she starts complaining about the name she DOES have, I will gleefully enlighten her.

(Source: shield-of-an-oaken-branch)

“He was — I remember that guy, he was huge when I was a kid.  Everyone wore his clothes, and his music-“

Sharon set the glass down so hard that it shattered.  “He was a monster with a very good publicist and some clever lawyers.  No one talks about all the girls he mentored who just disappeared.  No one talks about the people he stole from, the people he hurt, the ones he killed.  All they talk about is how he dragged himself up from the ghetto, taking on the establishment.  End of the day, he didn’t fight ‘em.  He turned into ‘em.”  She shrank back from Beth, unable to look her in the eyes.  “He was a monster, and he made me a monster too.”

“They’re just scars.”

Sharon’s laugh was utterly mirthless.  “Little girl, you don’t know shit.”

“When his club burned down, there was a body count.”  Medusa continued to study the painting hung up on the wall.  The figures were twisted, distorted monsters caught in the midst of tearing each other apart while being eaten away by flames.  “The whole thing was blamed on faulty wiring, of course…”

“My scars go straight to the soul.  I’m not a hero.”

Beneath her veil, Medusa smiled.  “I wouldn’t say that.  Your hands may not be clean, but in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not looking for the kind of talent that’s going to get the cover of Entertainment Weekly.“  She turned, folding her hands together.  “You know.  You understand that there’s more to evil than global domination plots and grand schemes.”