Okay, I have a really good sense of humor where my family name is concerned. I mean, I understand that unless it’s something like Smith, Leahy or even, you know, Russo…it’s a challenge. But seriously give me a break here. My family name is spelled exactly as it sounds ‘Della Piana’. No, it’s not De La Piana. There’s no pause between Della. Okay?

The other night brought a new twist to my family name in the form of a certificate of achievement given to Thalia. Yes, something even I have not seen yet. Not only was the appearance of this certificate of achievement a couple of months late because it sat in Thalia’s book bag, but the name on the certificate was very adventurous, as you can see, because it was awarded to Thalia Dellapenia. Yep, just one change in letter and she could have been Thalia Dellapenis.

It’s not like she’s new at Amesbury Middle School. In fact, next year will be her last year in Amesbury Middle School before she moves onto high school. It’s not like they don’t have files to consult. They sure know how to spell it when they’re sending home bad reports or warnings, I might add.

Check this out, I had to go up to the school to pick Thalia up after school, which meant I had to check in at the office. So, I think I might have actually dealt with the person who made out the certificate today. I’m standing there and this older woman asks if she can help. I told her I needed to pick up Thalia and she was in homeroom 305. She gets on the the phone right in front of me with the correct name pulled up on her computer screen. Here’s what she says:

“Hi, this is Mrs. WTF, is Talia Del Penia there?”

Yeah, Talia (as in Shire). Ugh. Del Penia. Are you fucking kidding me? I just kept telling myself, “Bite your tongue, Della Piana. Don’t get too sarcastic on the first day of school.” But WTF, can’t these people even read a name off the computer screen? They work at a freakin’ school. I knew the other woman behind the desk really well and even she couldn’t believe this woman couldn’t read the name. She had her arms raised in the air and was shaking her head as she was listening to her. I started laughing. I was secretly hoping that Thalia would refuse to answer to the name on the other end because she hates having her name mangled as well.

Walking out, I asked Thalia how often this happens. Her only reply was, “You have no idea, ma.” Actually, I do.

Okay, so I’ve been missing for a few days. Just a load of painful personal drama. Everybody’s got it. I’m trying to keep my shit together through mine after running my heart over a jagged little edge. And that’s all you’re ever going to know on this subject because I happen to love very deeply the other party in the equation. No bitterness here. And absolutely no regret. Just sadness and quite a bit of emptiness.

Anyway, you can consider this a rant. I’m considering this a rant.  Now, I know my name isn’t the simplest of names but you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work it out.

Several days ago I received five pieces of mail addressed to someone at 25 Pamela Lane. Here is what I got:

D Della pinia

F. Piana

F Deborah Piana

Mr. Francis DellaPiana (this was especially charming, as they managed to change my gender as well)

Now, I don’t know any of the above-named people. None of these letters were mailed to me. Therefore, I kindly marked each of these envelopes with the appropriate “Addressee Unknown” statement in bright orange marker and handed them back to the mailman. I mean, if these people want money, they’re going to have to do better than that. My name is simple: Deb Della Piana. Spell it just the way it sounds. Nothing complicated here. It’s even more adventurous when the phone rings.

“Hello.”

“Hello, is this Miss Della Pinia?”

“Who?”

“Miss Della Pinia?”

“Nope. Sorry. Nobody by that name here. Bye.”I get these calls all the time. Usually, they are bill collectors (or the Electric Company, in my case). Now, I have already spent money with these people, so you’d think they would at least get it right. But, noooooooo. Not even the clowns I’ve already spent money with can get it right.

The very least we should expect in this economy is that those chasing us for payment will get our names right. I mean, it’s the decent thing to do. But it doesn’t seem that decency is much in vogue these days.

Okay, this is sort of a here and now post but, at the same time, I refer to stuff that has happened in my past. So, let’s call it a “that was then, here is now” moment. I was inspired to write this because, a few weeks back, I met someone I used to work with. I haven’t seen this person since before Thalia was born, and that would be more than twelve years ago. As is just so typical of lesbians, she asked me, “What do your kids call you?” I replied, “Ma.” She looked at me, “And what do they call Beth?” I looked at her and said, “Ma.” She got this confused look on her face, “What if you’re together and you both answer at the same time? What happens?” I though about it for a minute, and then told her that Thalia will usually point to one of us and say, “You” or “This one.” That seemed to disturb her.

What this person wanted was two distinct names. Like, maybe ma and mom. Or mom and mother. I mean, you cannot imagine how long she went on about this. It made seeing her again a real chore. I call that “processing,” and lesbians are notorious for processing. Not this lesbian, mind you, but most lesbians. Shit, get a room full of lesbians together and you can almost hear the whirring sound. Let me tell you where I come from on this one.

I live in a “No Processing Zone.” Seriously. I come from a home where both my mother and my grandmother were called, “Ma.” We used to congregate at my grandmother’s house after Sunday morning mass to eat meatballs and dip bread in her gravy (that’s spaghetti sauce to non-Italians). When I say “we,” I meant our family plus my aunts and uncles and their families. There were more people calling each other “Ma” than you could shake a stick at. We worked it out. There has been absolutely no lasting trauma from it.

Now, for the benefit of those who haven’t seen the evil mother-in-law, I’m going to include her photo here. Doesn’t she look like a lesbian? She processes too. Yes, she wants Thalia and Aaron to call her Mamé because that’s what “her boys” call her. Her boys, of course, are her other grandchildren. I knew there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Miss Thalia would comply. When I told her, she looked at me and said, “I’m not calling her that.”

Now, there was a period in my life when I lost my fucking mind. I’m not prepared to write about that in much detail yet, but I’m getting there. Suffice it to say that I was involved with someone else, and this person was a processor par extraordinaire. To this day, I’m not sure WTF happened to me. This woman had every characteristic that I just about disliked in a person, and processing was just one of them. Needless to say it was over before it began.

I don’t say that I never think things through. I do, but I’m more likely to just “go with it.” I also don’t over-analyze a situation like my bride does. If someone does something that hurts her, she has to know why the person did it. I don’t want to know why. I just want the person to fucking stop. It’s simple for me. The less time I spend in the processing zone, the more productive my life is.