I did manage to get my haircut. It was a strange expensive $45 experience. Five dollars off because she didn’t wash it or use any product; she straightened it with a hot iron then sniped off the ends. She didn’t cut off nearly as much as I’d hoped but now that it’s straight and silky it reminds me of Jamie Sommers.

I’d picked the name Jamie when I was 12. Jamie was a boy’s name and I knew it except there was a girl on my street who changed her name to Stormy…her name had been Jamie! She was the only person I knew with that name and I was disgusted with my birth name. There were at least 3 girls with the same name in my homeroom and more in my grade at school; at home my name had been shorted to a screeching…IT with a hard dragged out T at the end, you see I was a Janet. These days I like the name Janet, Janet Beth but I’m not her anymore. No, I’m a rebellious Jamie. Who changes their name at 12? It’s been a fight with years of struggle to get my new name to stick. I finally had to “officially” change it in my late 30s due to tightened security with the feds and banks not going for “two” first names at all.

I liked having an ambiguous name, when I was growing up mostly only boys were permitted the fun stuff. I wanted to be a boy but still be a girl, that’s why I traded skirts and garters for boy’s button down the front 501 Levi’s. I wanted the freedom and approval to be the one on the white horse, the hero, the one do to the saving….I had no interest in being the damsel in distress, Cinderella or Little Red Hiding Hood; no I wanted to be Mighty Mouse, the Lone Ranger or Bat Man! But I couldn’t even be Bullwinkle. So being “Jamie” suited me, no more just one more in a crowd, I was unique, a girl named Jamie; different things were expected of me. People looked at me weird and lectured me that I shouldn’t be going around with a boys name…I liked it. Everything was fine until the Bionic Woman!

She stole my name! As it says in the post:

The name “Jaime” (and I spelled it that way until I got tired of being called Hi-Me) was predominantly a male name (a derivative of “James”) before the television series began. It is probably not a coincidence that in 1976 the name Jaime became one of the 100 most popular names of the year in every one of the 50 US states. The female name Jamie (a variant spelling) also gained enormous popularity at the same time.

 

Oh, how I’d loved my friends saying to me, “Let’s go James, Take me home James,” Then all of a sudden I was a superstar. I was supposed to be larger than life. There were different expectations; I was supposed to be able to do anything now!!!! Oh Bionic Woman…what did I ever do to make you steal my name! Did I run into your creator down at Hollywood and Vine or maybe on Melrose at the Bodhi Tree, or in North Hollywood running around the streets and backlots of the studios and you thought, wow what a great name for a girl, I think I’ll steal that for my new show! You thief spoiled my life! See it on TV and everyone has to do it, now there are a million females named Jamie. So I have to compete, I don’t like it. Since the late 80s I’ve wanted to change my name again. How do I know it’s me if there are so many others that come running when the name is called? How do I know it’s me when people have images of a blond dynamo who can do everything just a little better and faster and smarter than I can!

So, dear bionic woman  it’s time you acknowledged where you got your name. Here I am trying to do a million things at once and do them all perfectly. I am the original Jamie, except for Stormy who changed her name and her name hadn’t originally been Jamie anyway . . . it’s not Jamie Sommers and her dog Maximillian . . . it’s Jamie Rosenthal and her once upon time Gigi and Sambo the poodles, then Bisschen the boxer, and my beloved PWD Hero along with Taiko the lab/chow and now Mason and Olympia!