Suzy Says

Livin’ La Vida Suzy

I was thinking about how Elvis named his private plane for his daughter and how cool it would be to have a yacht or a plane named after you. If only I had a more glamorous name!

Apparently surveys show that Susan is considered a sexy name. I’ve always considered it a boring one, and when combined with a middle name of Jean, it’s hardly a surprise that I ended up living in Hooterville. Even though the consummately glamorous Marilyn and Self share the same unglamorous middle name, it still makes me feel like I should be chewing on a piece of straw and scratching under my overalls.

Seriously, can you think of one gorgeous Susan? Can you?

While you’re thinking about it, I’ll go empty the gross green bin contents into the woods and see if I can find Lucky, who’s been scarce lately. I wonder if she’s looking for a boyfriend.

(Later)

I’m back and slightly disgusted. I bet you couldn’t think of a beautiful Susan. The closest I could get was my idol Suzy Parker (seen above), but her real name was Cecilia, not Susan, so I’m not sure if she even counts.

My mother’s father, he of the great charm and humor, used to be the only person in the world who called me Suzy. I always felt we had a close bond. We both had green eyes, though he wasn’t related to me by blood, and I loved to listen to his stories. When he was well into his eighties, nearly blind and walking with a cane, he would still attract clouds of pretty girls while waiting for my grandmother at the mall.

“Let’s go home, Ernest, you’re tired, ” she’d say, taking his arm and steering him away. “I’m not tired,” he’d protest, with a backward glance and wink at his audience.

I was fifteen when he died. I used to sleep in on a cot in my grandparents’ bedroom, and the night before his funeral, I dreamed that he was lying in his coffin (both of my grandparents had open coffins and three visiting days at the funeral home, some of the worst days of my life) with black plastic billowing around it. Peeking into the coffin in my dream, I saw that he was laughing. When we arrived at his grave the next day, there was the billowing black plastic of my dream. I knew it meant that he was happy to join my grandmother, who had died three months earlier. It wasn’t scary at all, it was reassuring.

I missed him so much that I started asking close friends to call me Suzy. It made me feel as if he wasn’t really gone forever. Now friends and family call me Suzy*, and work-related people and grown-ups call me Susan, so I have my real life self and my work self. Perfect for a Gemini.

*The other day, Megan and I were laughing about how she and Jonathan can call me “Floozy” or “Boozy” or variations on this theme and I always answer without even thinking about it.