I was over at ALISA Valdes-Rodriguez's blog, when it occured to me that I'd been referring to her as ALICIA. How this managed to happen puzzled me. In fact, I'd even written in the comment section of her blog and called her Alicia. I'd gone so far as to link to her weblog with the wrong name in the address. I was shocked. Shocked because I have both of Alisa's books sitting on my shelf, I visit her blog daily, and at one point when I'd first discovered Dirty Girls Social Club I did an online search of her name with the proper spelling.
So how could I just up and freakin' forget her first name?
Well, it's a case of human oversight. It's happen to me before with another author. Does anyone know who Jennifer Crusie is? Well, I'd discovered her genius while browsing for books at a bookstore downtown. Hmm...I've never heard of Jennifer CRUISE, I thought. Maybe I should check her out. So I picked up a copy of Fast Women, took it home, and immersed myself in Jennifer's work. Oh, I love how she's defining Nell's vulnerability. I think I'm going to be a Jennifer CRUISE fan after this., I thought as I continued to root for Nell and Gabe to heat up Ohio with their grooves. Long story short, I finished the book and let it sit on my nightstand for a couple days before I started The Re-read. I looked at the cover of the book and admired the tea cups and lipstick, the maroon script-writing of the title, and then at her name. CRUISE...That's not CRUISE, it's CRUSIE!
And now my latest victim: Alisa.
Science has an explanation for this, which I'm too lazy to do research on it right now, but I know it entails something about the human eye seeing, at times, what a word sounds like than what it actually is. And Alisa looks similar to Alicia, and Cruise looks awfully close to Crusie. Something like that, I think.
Anyway, what surprises me the most about this mix-up is no one bothered to correct me, which leads me to think others were inflicted with the same condition. Or didn't want to come off whiny. But how I wished Alisa would have just written back something snarky in the comments section where I called her Alicia. Something like, "Ms. Hausen, when you find Alicia Valdes-Rodriguez, let me know."
Sadly, I was allowed to continue to make a fool of myself. So in a frenzy, I erased all my comments where I referred to her as Alicia, fixed the link to her blog, and I'm hoping Alisa forgives the faux pas.
