Ginger Unplugged

You would think being named Ginger and having a mother named Silver, a daughter named Asha, and several friends from Poland, I would be forever immune to surprise over someone's given name. Or even their assumed name. I have been friends with a woman named Leaf, quite liked another named Starla, one of my best friends is named Janica and I can even speak to other friends about their son Thomas with a straight face--no, it's not Thomas like you read it, it's pronounced Toe Moss. And these friends are thoroughly American with no pentiant for accenting other words in foreign ways as far as I have heard. So, I ask them how little Toe Moss is whenever I see them. That's why I was so shocked at myself when a friend mentioned an acquaintance named Balthazar. Before I could reclaim it, a huge "WHAT?" sprang out of my mouth. Now why would the name Balthazar, out of all the names I've encountered, set off my mind and mouth? I have met people named Jadwiga, Boguslaw ...

Okay, how can a blog be unplugged? First of all, I just liked the sound of it, but I suppose I ought to think of something better than that. Plus, there's probably some deep, dark psychological reason. Grab your couch. Let's see if we can discover it. Maybe "Unplugged" has something to do with using my laptop nowhere near an electric outlet (as long as the battery lasts, anyway). Maybe it has to do with my yearning to learn to play the acoustic guitar which is never going to happen so long as my main aspirations have to do with writing books, articles, emails, IM's and blogs. Oh, and those minor things like keeping the children alive, the husband loved, and the house livable. But contemplation of the inkblot on my shirt reveals that my subconscious hopes this will be a place where I can just come and blather and no one has to care or read it or even know it's here (if I don't tell them). I don't have to arrange my too big hair, check my breath, or even...