Heathers...

I have this annoying habit that when I come across another blogger or Twitter account and I see the name 'Heather' pop up, I immediately follow them. 

Why you may ask yourself?  Why, Heather?  Why you follow other Heathers?

I dunno.

Growing up, there was another Heather in my class and as it was the 70's when we were born, I was quite surprised that there weren't more Heathers, per se, but it is Iowa and I don't think Iowa was big on the 70's scene too much.  Unless you count getting high and having a kegger in the middle of a cornfield.  I did neither of those, thank you very much.   Wait.  I did attend a kegger in a cornfield.  Hasn't everyone?  No?  Well, I'll tell you about it:  There's corn, there's beer, and there's a fire.  It's a lot like Footloose without the cool musics.  Or Kevin Bacon.

Where was I?  Oh yes, Heathers.

Anyway, there were two of us in my class growing up and we didn't run into any problems with this until my junior year where we were both taking the same Psychology of Self class (ten points to Gryffindor for actually remembering the name of this class) and our teacher said that one of us had to have a fake name because he didn't want to call out 'Heather' and have both of us look up.  I'm sure I could go into how detrimental this was for my 15-16 year old self and the psychology of it all, but who was I to argue?  For the rest of that semester I had to hand in my homework and answer to the name Mabel.  (I just Googled the name meaning.  It means 'Lovely or Dear'.  HAHAHA - Obviously so not me.)  Seriously.  Those little turds - and by turds I mean the boys in my class - had named me Mabel.  Insert me rolling my eyes...still. 

I never thought I would be pissed off about not answering to Heather anymore.  I mean for the better part of my life I had wanted another name, any name, but I think all kids go through that phase.  And some at the age of 18 decide to go ahead and change it up.  Not me.  I kept mine.  Well, till I got married, but that's my last name and that, my friends, is another story altogether. 

But, at that point, I missed being me.  I missed being Heather.  I'd have even settled for the 'other Heather' at that point.  The other white meat.  Something other than Mabel. 

If nothing else, that class taught me to kinda like my name. 

And there are times when I run across other Heathers and part of me wants to pull them aside and ask if they'd ever wanted to denounce their name or if it plagued them to not have a normal name like Lisa or April or Susan.  But, I figure it's just best to let that one be.  People think I'm odd enough without asking these things. 

I mean when I was growing up I wanted to be a combo Pocahontas/Laura Ingalls Wilder with the name Lisa.  I was a strange kid obviously.  I would set up my little pup tent, head on out in the yard with my sleeping bag, a slew of books and every once in awhile I would take my rabbit, Oreo, out of her cage and drag her into the tent, too.  We were on the Dakota plains and we were Native Americans. 

See?  This was my thought process.

And that rabbit peed on my copy of A Wrinkle in Time.

Do I still have it?

Yup.  Pee-stained and all.  It's still on my book shelf.

Gawd, I've veered way off track again.

So, I'm not Lisa, April or Susan.

As long as I'm not Mabel either, I'm all good.