This may be a bit tongue and cheek, but I just had to write about it. First, I’ll provide a little background. My name is Lindsey Jenelle Russell. My Mom’s name is Leslie. When she named me way back in December 1980, she supposedly didn’t realize just how similar the names Leslie and Lindsey are. She never really thought about it. I’ve been living in the shadow every since.
It is important to note that not only did I attend the very same school district K-12 that my Mom did as a child, my Mom also taught in that district the entire time I was a student. I even ended up with a few teachers that she’d had 24 years earlier, several in fact. It was understandable that occasionally people in my hometown, so many of whom have known my Mom for decades, would call me Leslie. It never really bothered me, but nothing could prepare me for what happened next.
When I arrived on campus at Michigan State University in August 1999, I never dreamed the name Leslie would follow me. How wrong I was! Even though no one there knew my Mom, I would occasionally get called Leslie by professors, classmates, etc. When I met Brian’s Dad for the first time, before he even met my Mom or knew her name, he called me Leslie too. I must look like a Leslie. I have no way to explain it. It just keeps happening with people who in no way could know my Mom’s name. It is pretty funny. Sometimes I think I should just go with it and answer to Leslie.
Nah, I’m too much my own person. That is what makes it even funnier. My Mom and I look nothing alike. It is my sister and my Mom that look eerily similar. How my name gets mixed up with my Mother’s I will never know.
What an incredible week all around. My head’s full of ideas for my writing and Ramblings of a Misguided Blonde especially. I’m hoping to start series highlighting creative endeavors in and around the Great Lakes Bay region, both in the arts and in business. Nothing is set yet, but I have quite a few prospects. My reasoning behind the series is to show that there is still life here, both creatively and from a business standpoint. It is no secret that Michigan’s still not quite recovering from the recession of 2008-2009. Honestly, if you want the truth no one is willing to admit, Michigan never fully recovered after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Just as things started getting a bit brighter, something always seemed to come along to set Michigan back, but enough of that deeply depressing topic.
I’m hoping to soon have a regular blogging schedule here. I realize how scattered the content has been as of late. There are so many things I want to do here. If you have any suggestions or would like to guest post, please simply leave me a comment. I’m open to new ideas.
Check out my newest page. It is part of my series of pages on my years at MSU (Michigan State University is the main page). Before I started writing down my thoughts on writing online, I didn’t fully realize just how deep my blogging roots go. It continues to amaze me just how quickly everything changes online.
Enjoy!
PS – You may also want to check out the page I created dedicated to MSU’s beautiful campus.
Readers may have noticed that I haven’t added much “new” material lately, unless they’ve looked closely. Lately I’ve been working very hard on the “pages” portion of the blog. I’m still working on getting it exactly how I want it. There are so many great topics, etc. coming up very shortly. Stay tuned!
I will shortly get back to our regularly scheduled programs. Promise. On a side note, I’ve really enjoyed reblogging as of late. I’m not going to share anything and everything, but what I do share caught my attention one way or another. Thus far I’ve enjoyed meeting other bloggers via reblogging. There are so many wonderful blogs out there! Enjoy.
In case you missed it, below are some of the new pages I created.
No new content. I just finally took the time to thoroughly work out the bugs in the HTML. If you haven’t taken the time to read this conversation, please do. The entire experience expanded my ideas as to what a blog can be.
Yes, I did it. I created a fan page for the Detroit Tigers. If you want to follow the Tigers this season, look no further. I embedded their complete schedule, included several links to lots of great information pertaining to roster, stats, etc., as well as added links to a few posts in which I discuss the Tigers. I also embedded a few of my favorite Tigers-related YouTube videos. It is going to be one heck of a season. Opening Day can’t get here quick enough.
I decided that I needed to pay homage to my alma mater. I included some priceless videos. It is also inspiring some additional pages coming very soon. I loved college and always will. Seriously.
I spent quite a bit of time on this one. I came across some wonderful politically inspired quotes, many from our Founding Fathers. I may add more as time goes on.
I decided to create this page due to the sheer number of pages I created. It is easier to understand what I’m doing when looking at the entire thing in this format. Please take a look. It will certainly be a work in progress.
I believe I forgot to mention just how much I love Freshly Pressed and WordPress. This beautiful Saturday morning I discovered the post below on Freshly Pressed. It is exactly what I need to hear today.
I had an earlier version of this post which I lost when Word decided to crash on me. Unfortunately the recovery version didn’t include the latest paragraph, and I accidently dumped the entire thing. In the end, it isn’t a bad thing. I started to discuss precisely why I need to hear the message in the above post today. It turned out to be incredibly lengthy and much more well-suited for my About Me page. I may just have to do that in the future. The gist of the message is this: I can’t understand why I am now so risk adverse in my career today when I was the EXACT opposite in my academic career at Michigan State University. I consider my years at MSU extremely successful. Unfortunately, I have yet to really do much of anything with my “career.” I’m merely getting by.
What is it with the Goo Goo Dolls? Two of their biggest hits in the very late 90s, Iris and Name seemed to follow me around my entire five years at Michigan State. I love the songs to be sure, but at the time, they were everywhere. To this day I am automatically taken back to MSU every single time I listen to either song.
Both songs are beautiful, even if somewhat depressing. Name happens to be off of the famous album A Boy Named Goo; Iris is off of the album Dizzy Up The Girl. Both songs were written by Johnny Rzeznik. Over a decade later, the Goo Goo Dolls still hold up. Enjoy.
For me, music is almost as powerful as smell when it comes to memory. This song will always remind me of my amazing senior year at Michigan State. It was everywhere.
It all began this morning while making my usual Facebook rounds. I saw that a friend of my brother posted a YouTube video featuring a vintage travelogue of Michigan from the 1940s. I just had to share it. Michigan is home and has been for all branches of my family going back generations now. As much as it kills me to admit this, I am a Michigander to the core. I’ve lived in Michigan most of my life thus far, I graduated from Michigan State University, and the Great Lakes are in my blood. I even grudgingly admit that I have a Michigan, not Canadian or Minnesotan, accent. Yes my fellow Michiganders there is such a thing.
Once there was a time in my life when I desperately wanted to leave it all behind. Just like so many other people in my family, I wanted to live in Texas. My family’s off-again, on-again love affair with Texas is a separate issue that could easily fill another post. Oddly enough, it extends to both sides of my family. Why do I bring this up? I bring it up because it was through my experiences in Texas, and those of a cousin, that I realized Michiganders are unique.
Let me explain. I have an older cousin who lived in Texas herself for a year or two. I followed suit after graduating from college. I then noticed something when I came home. She and I had our own accents. It didn’t last long as we reverted back to our Michigan accents, but for a while, if one carefully listened to how we spoke, it became easy to identify the Texas influence in our speech. I loved it. We had our own version of Spanglish. Texigan?
The entire experience, which I may have mostly imagined, made me think long and hard about the impact of place on culture. It then occurred to me that, if it were geographically possible, the place that I’d feel most comfortable would be with one foot in Michigan and the other in Texas. Here’s the problem. I love Michigan. My entire family is here, I can’t imagine not living near so much fresh water, and the change of seasons is great, even when someone decides to cancel winter.
Where do I even begin with Texas? I love the independent spirit of Texas, and unfortunately, I find it seriously lacking in most Michiganders, much of my family excluded. There is a reason why Texans are fixin’ to do just about anything. Michiganders, not so much. Texans know how to recognize people with big hats and no cattle. Michigan would be so much better off if we could develop that sixth-sense!
Unfortunately I am much more politically aligned with Texans than I am with Michiganders. I despise most unions, I can’t stand political apathy, and I am all for limited government that recognizes the rights of the individual. I’ve watched my entire life as Michigan hedged all of her bets on a dying auto industry. Instead of trying to build new industry here, we shipped our best and brightest off to Texas, Arizona, and California. Especially Texas.
Texas continues to reinvent itself and roll with the punches, exactly what Michigan needed to do and needs to do now. Texans had the foresight to embrace technology in all forms instead of relying solely on oil and ranching. I think of Michigan and see nothing but lost opportunity. It deeply saddens me. I truly love Michigan and care about the state. I just hope the recent signs of life here are the start of something wonderful. Michigan does have a history of reinventing herself too; it is just that the entire process is hindered by misguided politicians and union influence. Maybe almost losing it all will finally wake up those eternally skeptical Michiganders.
Below are a few videos of interest:
The video above is the video I came across this morning that inspired this post. The video below is an inspiring version of “Michigan My Michigan” that honors those Michigan soldiers that fought for the union. I’m proud to say that I have a great-great grandfather who was among them.
Below is an attempt to explain the Michigan accent. It freaks me out because my recorded voice sounds so similar to hers. If you ever wondered what I sound like, this video will give you a pretty good idea.
I became extremely distracted by this website tonight. It is an online collection of items dating from various periods throughout Michigan State University’s long history. I graduated a year too early! In 2005, MSU celebrated 150 years.
I’d love to have some of the milk bottles, pennants, and leather patches featured on the website!
