Tag Archives: Names

That’s not my name

Posted on by February 25, 2020

I didn’t expect to post again so soon. My plan is to write and schedule. But I have a rant and nobody but the internet to talk to at the witching hour.

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My name, my full name, is Jessie Bishop Powell.  But I get a lot of mail for the following people who don’t exist:

 

Mrs. Scott Merriman.

Mr. And Mrs. Scott Merriman

Dr. and Mrs. Scott Merriman

Well, Dr. Merriman exists. That’s Scott. But that other person is a figment. My first name is not Mrs. My last name is not Merriman. And no, it is not acceptable to hold onto a titular formula from an earlier era  when women’s identities were subsumed beneath their husbands’.… Read the rest

Because it’s my name

Posted on by February 25, 2020

My parents stood behind the house. My mother’s waist-length hair was bound into a ponytail, but my father let his curls tumble down to the middle of his back. Dad looped a narrow arm around Mom’s shoulders.

Mom said, “If it’s a boy, we’ll call him Jesse Bishop, after my grandfathers.”

“What about a girl?”

“I want something beautiful. Something that shines like the sun and glitters like a jewel.” Mom gazed out over her garden.

“Jewel?”

“No. I also want it to be down to earth.” She looked harder at the garden.

“Eartha.”

“There’s only one Eartha Kitt.”

“What then?”… Read the rest