March 11, 2003

Today is the day to listen to all your cds in alphabetical order.

Sort of just in time for Lent, for the next 33 days or so, Mary Gustafson of Knotmag and I will have an ongoing discussion of what it means to be a young, practicing (but not necessarily 'good') Catholic in these modern times.

Claire B. is definitely one of my favorite Claires. Sometimes I think she's my lost little sister, and not just because she saw the same Rolling Stone picture of Dave Matthews (you know, the one where his stomach was showing beneath a baby-blue shirt) and came to the conclusion that he looked at least partially mentally impaired, or because she proves my theory that most Claires enjoy a healthy dose of hip-hop. There are other reasons, but I forgot what they are. By the way, if you feel the need to contribute something to Claire week, you are most welcome...

We Are Claire, You Are Not Week
Day 2: A Two-Parter By Claire B.:
" Making Myself Claire: In Two Parts (and no transition between them!)"

Claire and Claires: Clarifying the Differences

Claire Standish (aka the girl Molly Ringwald played in The Breakfast Club): First off, I took tap dance lessons for 9 years so I have hella more talent than putting on lipstick without my hands. But more importantly, I would never fall for John Bender. Why? Because dude, it's still Judd Nelson. He's still gonna star along side Shannon Doherty in the thriller/softcore porn flick, Blindfold: Acts of Obsession.

Claire Danes: My chin doesn't vibrate when I cry. No, rather, I regress into a 5' 6'' baby, with ropes of snot swinging from my nose and an inability to both inhale and exhale. Other noteable discrepancies: I weigh more than Lycra and I don't think much of Ben Lee.

Claire Zulkey: Okay, so about Claire. I have to give it to her that she's funnier. She is. But hey, I drink less.

Claire Forlani: Unlike Miss Forlani, I can act my way out of a paper bag.

Clare Quilty (character in Nabokov's Lolita, later played by my long time love and dearest dahhhhling Peter Sellers in the 1962 Stanley Kubrick film rendition): So, I'm not a pedophile but I am a Peter Sellers fanatic. Which means I would jump for joy to have Peter Sellers, um, p l a y me.

A Clear and Present Claire

My mom wanted me to be Madeleine but she was worried that I'd get the stupid nickname Maddie, and nobody would ever call me by my full name. Then she liked Marisa, but she liked it the way Italians pronounced it, Mahreee-sah, and she knew I'd end up being a Muh-riss-uh. So it got to be Claire because as she tells me time and time again, "I'm sucker for French names."

I remember one sleepy weekend afternoon we found ourselves watching Untamed Heart on TBS. You know, the one with Marisa Tomei and Christian Slater? The one in which he was given a baboon heart as a baby but he wants to prove that he still has the capacity to love? Well, long story short: my mom took off from the couch after less than an hour of two blazing starlets exclaiming, "Thank god I didn't name you Marisa."

My high school didn't have Heathers; it had Ashleys. 5 of them, all friends, all pretty and all of absolutely no interest to me. I liked my name and I especially liked that in my high school of well over two thousand students, I was the sole Claire.

Since coming to college I have met girls with some of the most beautiful and interesting names--Honor, Iskra, Elana, Leah, Alida, Sofia, Indra, Eidan, Bianca--names quite a bit cooler than mine, or at the very least more unusual.

But I like Claire. It's airy but short and lays pretty on a page. Uncommon but not unusual, it's a fitting name for me.