The Unveiling of My New Word(s)

Is there a name for the occurence of when a person has a first and last name that are the same, like Jordan Jordan or Carter Carter? And I wonder, are there very many people whose parents blessed them with such a combination of names? And of those people, how many have taken the effort to legally or informally change them? If there would be a designated word for such treacherous namesakism, I would call it synaname.

Wishy-Washy.

There's been a wish list on my chalkboard in my kitchen for about three months. It contains some necessities, but mostly just stuff I wish I had.

1. A new computer.
2. New tires for my car.
3. A Wii. (I didn't put that one on there.)
4. Chaise lounge.
5. GPS.
6. A digital camera.
7. i-pod or MP3 player.

So far, just having the list hasn't helped me get any of that stuff at all. I'm getting kind of tired of having the list up there.

Up

Despite the brilliant sunny weather, I watched a matinee of Up in 3-D. I fell asleep for about 10 or 15 minutes during a pivotal part in the movie. You'd think a person wouldn't get bored at a 3-D movie. The study of the old man's life was pretty sentimental and introspective, and seems to have been based on the real Carl Frederickson, according to the credits at the end of the movie. To watch highlights of a couple's life, from childhood to death (or near death), as in Love in the Time of Cholera (not the movie), makes life seem pretty short and puts a person squarely in the shoes of a person who has lived so much life that all that's left are the memories in his mind. It always makes me want to do something more than I'm doing at the moment. And it makes me re-examine some of the choices I've already made that have put me in the spot I'm in now.
I'm not sure whether seeing the part of the movie I missed would have made me like it any better than I did, but it was a decent movie. Watching it in 3-D didn't add much to the movie, and the tinted glasses made everything darker than it would have been otherwise. I would have rather seen it brighter, and maybe I wish I hadn't been as sleepy. Twenty-six dollars later, I'm wondering what's so great about going to the movies.

Thursday

Today I've been thinking about Edy's Samoas (Girl Scout Cookies) Ice Cream. It's amazingly delicious, but it might be even better with some Magic Shell on top.
I watched a show on MTV about a dancer teaching an uncoordinated high school student be better at dancing in four weeks so she could try out for the dance team. The biggest message about trying to get the student to improve was for her to radiate with self confidence. To help her do that, she got a haircut, eyebrow reduction, contact lenses, new clothes and new shoes. When she went to school with her new look the next day, a guy asked her out on a date. The sickening allure of superficiality is a vicious truth. I need ice cream.

Old Stuff

I've been thinking about a tour of a home I took two days ago that opens itself up to tours. I happened to be there because that was where I was a guest at a bridal shower tea that was happening. The home seemed to be open for nothing except tours. It was a beautiful, spacious, historic home, but I couldn't figure out why it was significant or special enough for a tour. I wondered how much a person might pay to take a tour. It was "included" if you were a guest at the bridal shower. I saw the servant's quarters in the basement, where the kitchen, icebox and pantry, and living area for servants were. Half of the basement, where the servants lived, used to have a dirt floor, but the floor had been covered with bricks. It was cold and the ceilings were very low down there. I saw six bedrooms on the second floor; a back porch that had been made into a bathroom; two other rooms that had once been porches and had been enclosed; a giant dining room; three living rooms; and a gift shop. There had been a dumbwaiter and an elevator (you had to pull your own weight) at one point, but the dumbwaiter had been removed and the elevator was just to look at. The ceiling on the first floor was 13 feet high; the ceiling on the second floor was 12 feet high; and the third floor ceiling was 11 feet. There was a third floor with several more bedrooms, but it was not open for the tour part. The furniture was all very beautiful, but none of it was original to the home of the only two families that had lived there. There were decorations on the walls that women had made from family hair. I had no idea that was how women used to spend their time. The tour guide said that this was what was called "tatting," so I went away thinking that tatting was something it is not. It sounded like she was saying that tatting was related to making art out of hair; but it turns out that tatting is the art of making lace out of thread. Anyway, the hair art looked like over-dried floral arrangements. I learned something else from the art on the wall -- some old needlework, and an alphabet sewed onto some material, created before there was a "J" in our alphabet. Since when did we not have a "J" in our alphabet? The cloth only looked about a hundred years old.