Thinking about names

So I'm still not sure how this blog thing works, like, if you're supposed to post every day, every few hours (like some of those inane idiots on twitter-equipped iphones tweeting like buzzards over a possum carcass), or only when things happen. That's why I've let a little time slip itself between now and my first stellar blog, stellar only because I've named it so. I wonder how girls named Precious feel, and if their parents were trying to head something off at the pass....
For some reason I started thinking about this girl Precious, who I went to high school with and haven't seen since. Her dad left her mom about the same time mine did, around 5th grade ('96ish for those of you in different academic tracks), and they lived out near Mill Mountain park, not far from the Carillion, where her mom pulled doubles as a nurse. I don't remember what she did, but it was probably a bit of everything because every time you'd see her her face was drawn tight as a Navajo drum, sallow from jogging in soft-soled shoes through dawn lit shifts, up and down hallways smelling like they were sprayed with antiseptic and contrived home-iness (the smell always stuck with me after I spent a week there in 8th grade, getting over strong strep and mom's quiet hysterics).
Precious, unlike her mother, was plump, and not in a euphemism kind of way, just plump. Some kids called her 'muffin-top' or 'jelly-roll morton' after they discovered cruelty and how good it sounded in cracked adolescent voices, and though I never joined in, I never said anything. I didn't think she deserved that teasing, but, honestly, I didn't care. I was too focused trying to keep my jaw up and my boner down whenever Dee Anne Nelson strutted by like a timid doe in heat. I realize that's a bit contradictory, strutting and timid, but my head wasn't screwed on straight, and that's all it thought about, screwing straight, so my metaphorical prowess was lacking. But Precious, back to Precious.
She wasn't ugly, take a few loaves off of her and she'd've been downright attractive, but she had all the confidence of a hungover draft-dodger at a VFW barbeque and she exuded it, like the anti-matter of confidence, sending waves of it over you as she scurried past between knots of chattering kids leaning on lockers and generally impeding traffic. Or at least, I felt those waves. But, of course, I never said anything to her, except maybe 'here's that pencil you dropped in Halada's class' or 'did you study last night' to which she would respond with the appropriate demure nod or shake of the head.
And I wonder if she ever felt her name, not like holding it, though now I can see her writing it on a strip of papyrus or rice paper or something exotic and filmy like that and then holding it up to whatever light's around, letting the shadow of it fall into her eyes. I don't know why I'm thinking about this right now, but I am, and that's what this blog is for, a repository for my current thoughts, no matter how mundane, maudlin or myriad they might be. But really, I wonder if Precious ever felt the quality her parents named her after, if by linking her forever to that adjective they pushed her far away from it, some law of nominal inverse polarity or something like that.
Do letters obey thermodynamic laws in our minds? Too deep. Back to the subject.
Can names turn out to be curses, our parents' intentions mutating into the opposite of what they initially thought? Because Precious sure as hell never looked like she felt precious, exuding all the agonizing meekness of a neurotic mouse and trying not to let anyone know it. One time, I saw someone try to talk to Precious, some sophomore when we were juniors, who was a second string JV running back but according to rumors a nice guy, the kind who shook your hand strong no matter what side of the scoreboard you were on, and I heard later he wanted to know what she was doing that weekend, some party or other he or a friend was throwing and they wanted to pad it with people or maybe he just wanted to be a gentleman to this girl he'd seen pushing a hazy aura of invisibility through the halls, and she mumbled she had to go to Richmond with her mom to a great aunt or something or other and brushed past him like he was a one-eyed bible salesman.
Now, I didn't hear any of this, all of it was recounted in the locker room later via the canal system of teammates' little brothers and gossips in pads, but I saw it and it happened in a twist of an ear and watching Precious walk away you would've thought she'd just had someone give her Science homework instead of an opportunity to put herself out there and see what her name could be.
And so now I'm wondering what my name's doing to me, if it's pushing me away from what it means, and I don't mean my real name, but my nickname, Welcome Matt, which, if you know me, came up one house party in February when mom and Mel were at Regionals because Mel'd qualified with her 400 relay team and I couldn't go watch her weep on the podium because she'd pulled her hammy as the anchor trying to catch the Louisa county phenom burning up the asphalt like she'd stolen her flats because I'd had some test in Chemistry, which I was a wink away from failing, and I threw a small party that blew up since Roanoke has little to offer the underage crowd and word travels like syphillis through a Mexican brothel and I kept letting everyone in, telling them to get comfortable, make themselves at home because Paul made the first round of rum and cokes and we played a raucous game of Kings that put a lampshade on my head which I didn't take off and had to excuse with hospitality and Jimmy started calling me Welcome Matt when the whiskey got to his creative powers and it stuck like feet did to my kitchen floor the next morning, pulling up after only so much applied pressure until the next step.
And so I hope I'm still hospitable, even to a fault, though I never wanna see mom's face like I did that Tuesday morning when she helped Mel limp into the house to see me and Paul and Jimmy and Dave vigorously mopping in turns, giggling ourselves into the loopy lucidity of our hangover, bewildered out of it by mom's bellowing, because it's better to be welcoming than to be remote. This isn't saying anything against Precious, since everyone's got their reasons and personalities, but I think it says something about accepting what's given, and trying to work with it.
But God knows I can't go with this given situation, unemployment, for much longer. I guess some things shouldn't be tolerated.
Welcome Matt out