Say My Name, Say My Name

I realized the other day how much I say Henry's name. Not just when he's in trouble, with the shocked stage whisper: "Henry Oscar McCannell." But when I see him first thing in the morning. When it's time to take a nap. When he says, "Mommy?" ("Mama" just disappeared and I already miss it). When I make up songs about him. I say his name so much that when I call him anything else (Honey, Pumpkin Pie, Silly Monkey, etc.) he says, "No, I'm Henry."

But, I guess what brought this to my attention was the realization of how infrequently I hear my own name. And when I do it's rarely when someone is talking to me, but more likely about me. I'll catch Jared on the phone making plans with his family and saying he's going to check with me. The girls call me "Mrs. McCannell" which still doesn't sound like my name, so that doesn't count. Adults don't usually greet each other by name, but the cafeteria is full of "Hi Henry"s when we walk in.

In San Francisco, with my mother and father and brother, it felt like they said my name a lot. In a good way. And each time it was a brief jolt of shock, followed by comfort. Like when it's really sticky hot out and a wisp of wind brushes across your arms and shoulders. Unexpected and lingering. I'm reminded of my mom telling me how older people don't get touched very much. People stop hugging them or holding their hand. My mom used to rub my grandmother's back when she sat next to her. And I try to do this with Henry, holding his feet, kneading his legs and smoothing his hair. Hearing my name from my family is like that. My father, with one arm around my shoulders, saying, "Kelli, it's so good to see you." My mother, pushing my face into her chest and thumping my back, "Kelli, I've missed you." My brother, leaning down from the upstairs of his apartment "Kelli, do you want lemonade?"

When I worked at a movie theater in college, I used to get annoyed at customers who'd use my name. "Hello, uh, Kelli, this popcorn is stale." "Excuse me, Kelli, the theater is too cold." "Hi, Kelli, would you recommend the hot dogs?" But they didn't know me, they didn't count. They didn't get to pretend we are intimate and throw out my name like it's natural. To avoid their stranger-Kelli-usage, I'd wear someone else's nametag and smile when they said the wrong name. It was my little bite of enjoyment.

I've watched enough cop shows to know that using someone's name is a technique in familiarity. Something to make serial killers relate to their victims. A word to keep someone from jumping off a building. What Jason Bourne always wanted to know about himself. And psychology is silly in that way. How applicable it is to everything. We think we are above techniques of name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake. But when people we care about use our words back to us, say our name or put a hand on our arm (in a non-creeper way), it works. We feel paid attention to. Touched.

Advisee Reports

It's time for my advisee reports again. And because five new Norwegian girls arrived, my advisee list is up to ten. They have their homeroom advisors and their international student advisor and their academic advisor and me, their residential advisor. That's a lot of advising. I tell the girls that we are just hoping they like one of us enough to ask questions when they come up.

Every six weeks or so, we send reports home to their parents. We include academic, citizenship and extra-curricular comments. Some of them flow easily, the Brazilian girl who stops by the desk when she comes in from school every day. The prefect who I work with on duty and everyone knows. And sitting behind the duty desk as the girls come home from school tells me a lot. I see who is friends with who. And who immediately signs out to go meet up with her boyfriend, the kid with glasses waiting outside behind a tree until he hears the slam of our front door. I see who had a rotten day of classes by how quickly they ask for the kitchen key and how many bags of microwave popcorn they bring. I see who is in sports, their marroon and white uniforms with the outline of a husky head. I see who is excited by what activities, grabbing nearby dry erase markers to make sure their name is at the top of the list for a Portland Mall trip. I see who must hate the cafeteria food because they'd rather walk every day (sometimes in 30degree weather) to go to the Chinese food restaurant four blocks away.

But even then, there are the ones who slip by. The quiet, hidden girls who whisper past my door on the way to morning meeting and are a blur sneaking home from school. They disappear in classes and blend in the cafeteria. They have friends, giggle with their roommates at night, and sign up for dinner and a movie trips. But they don't seek out adults. At least not me. And when I knock on their doors to chat, their eyes take up half their face like cartoon animals facing a demon.

It is sometimes their personalities that are shy and sometimes their limited English keeps them shadowy. But either way, I have to find something to tell their parents that proves I pay attention to them. One of the other supervisors was writing a report about one of the new girls, and asked me, "Don't you think parents get tired of hearing, 'Your daughter is awesome.'?" I immediately answered no. Any healthy parent relishes hearing how much the world appreciates their child as much as they do. And other parents could take it as compliment meant solely for them and how their child must have gotten all their glowing qualities from their parents.

I email their teachers. I corner them after school. In my head, I include things their parents wouldn't want to know.
"Kitty is a very bright girl. Her teachers are impressed with her college-level writing. I'm so sorry I made her puke in my car that one time."
"Paula's English is impressive, especially for only having study it for the past year. I hope she hasn't learned the word for moth to tell you about that weird infestation of them in her bathroom. It's all cleared up now."
"Louise has an infectious laugh and you made the right decision not letting her spend the weekend in Boston with her older, married, online boyfriend in early September."
"Mary struggles with her English, but with more practice, I know she will improve. That is, if the ghost in her room doesn't suck out her soul."

They may not want to hear those things, but it would sure make it easier on me to include the good stuff.

Adventures in Babysitting

Remember that movie from 1987? While I'm not being chased by mobsters or have had to sing my way out of a blues club (yet), I feel like I could star in the remake.

Here're the adventures since my last blog...

• three more trips to doctors' offices with girls and Henry... good times.
• trying to convince a room full of foreign students that Halloween can be fun and then convince them I'm not insane when I show up as the Count to our Halloween dinner party.
• chaperoning a dinner/movie trip only to find my bus won't start, maintenance is called, of course it starts just fine for him and we're heading home, their faces lit with iPhones and earbud chords like tiny, white braids from their heads, when a boy tells me he left his wallet in the theater.
• emailing parents across the globe to ask them if it's okay for their teenage (15-18) daughter and her boyfriend to spend a week in a hotel in New York (or Boston or Portland etc.) over Thanksgiving break and them telling me, yep, of course, why not.
• putting my years of hair dyeing experience to good practice because my Russian student trusts me more than her English and put her butt-length hair in my plastic-gloved hands to make her a brunette.
• moving the tables and chairs and couches out of the big lounge to get 40 minutes of Just Dance in with a co-worker while the students are still in classes, only to have them come home and find us in the middle of a California Girls routine in old T-shirts and faded yoga pants with sweaty foreheads.
• Henry running out the screen door (in his new Thomas underwear; naked; barefoot; in various stages of disarray) to follow a girl up to her room; into the lounge; down to the kitchen where they feed him sugary treats and Doritos and flavored water and I chase after him and say, "Henry, that's not yours" when I really mean "DON'T EAT MORE CRAPPY FOOD" and they say, "Oh, that's okay, Mrs. McCannell. I gave it to him."
• performing a room search with the Dean of Discipline (not his actual title, but should be) and finding Prada shoes, an Armani Exchange belt, three bottles of Dior cologne, disposable boxers, a large wad of cash and thousands of dollars in eletronic equipment, but only two cigarettes.
• a hurricane (which barely touched us, but still seems worth mentioning)
• a girl (the only one without a roommate) saying she wants to move rooms because she's terrified to live alone even though we let her keep the light on and when I told my boss about it he said, yes, that's where the ghost lives, (which is incidentally right above our bedroom) and then the other woman who's worked at the school forever saying, yes, but they're all nice ghosts.

Whaddaya think - do I get my own sitcom?