A Rose is a Rose?

You know it's bad when you can no longer differentiate between your own internal monologue and reality. As such, I just spent the last fifteen minutes reviewing four months worth of blogs to make sure that I have not written on this same topic before, but, truthfully, there's no telling. So, if you've heard all of this before - sorry. And, if not, I suppose that's both good and bad for me - at least I have an original topic, but I really do spend way too much time in my own head. Anyway, I'm going to talk about my name. For those of you who don't know, my name comes from the novel "The Optimist's Daughter" by Eudora Welty. (There is an irony here that we'll discuss later.) And, since I am a Laurel and not a Lauren, Laura, or Laurie, it's not often that I encounter anyone else with my name. (Although, as a small child one of my cousins was named Lauren, and our great grandmother had Alzheimer's, so I do respond to many, many incarnations of "Laur," including the occasional L'Oreal, in an almost knee-jerk fashion.) It's also rare to find my name on television or in movies. There was briefly a Laurel on "All My Children," but I think she ended up killing her ex-husband and had to give her autistic daughter away before being sent to prison. Of course, most people had heard of Laurel as the skeptical, pot-smoking nurse sister in "Jerry Maguire." ( (A) The boyfriend of one of my college friend's would play the Bruce Springsteen "Secret Garden" song from the movie with pieces of the movie's dialogue spliced into it so that he could pretend that when Renee Zellweger was saying "I love him, Laurel," it was his girlfriend talking to me - they didn't make it, and (B) I hope that's the closest I ever get to Tom Cruise considering his behavior from the last year or so. I worry he would use those too white teeth to eat me because of my belief in psychiatry.) There's also a very unfortunate movie called "Sommersby" wherein Richard Gere plays opposite Jodie Foster's character Laurel. I can't even speak of it because trying to remember the incredibly awkward chemistry between those two only causes me pain. Of course, my favorite "Laurel on film" is in the made-for-television movie "Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?" which, in addition to the awful, too-long title, features an incredibly over-bleached Tori Spelling from her 90210 days when she was in the abusive relationship with rock star Ray as Laurel. Can you top that? I think not. Well, my original point being that it is rare to meet another Laurel, when I was in the craft store yesterday (because I do those things), the cashier who ran my card said, "Oh, my daughter's name is Laurel, too." We chatted for a second. I told her I thought that was neat. (And, yes, I probably did actually use the word "neat." I become a different, less capable person in the confines of the craft store.)Then she said, "Yeah, I always hoped she'd meet a man named Hardy." I just tried to freeze my face then because I was sure whatever reaction I had would not be appreciated. "Just kidding," she said. "But, I did always think of her as a Southern belle just waiting for her Confederate soldier to come home." Even though I was obviously relieved that the "Laurel and Hardy" couple was a joke, I just didn't know how to react to that one either. Maybe being in Chicago for two months ruined me because I forgot that it's still "ok" to mention the Confederacy like it's a good thing. Maybe I was surprised because I rarely think of myself as a Southern belle since the last time I stepped out of a hoop skirt at the age of seventeen. Mainly, I guess I just didn't think of my name as representing some sort of combo of these two things. It was weird, and I don't think I like it. So, from now on - I only answer to L'Oreal. After all, what could possibly be the connotations with that one...