This will be a quick post to share an exciting even that occurred in my life Friday night.
Peter and I decided that we wanted to take it easy at the beginning of the weekend, so after an impromptu trip to Superstore to pick out snacks (so much more fun than regular grocery shopping) we settled in at home to watch “The A-Team” on Netflix. Here’s the great thing about Netflix: I had never seen an episode the TV show, so we watched the pilot episode and then moved on the movie. Neither were very good.
Early on in the movie (the world ‘film’ seems too generous for “The A-Team”), there is a courtroom scene where the members of the A-Team are court martialled and sentenced to prison. Bradley Cooper’s character feels betrayed by Jessica Biel’s character (who is incidentally his ex-girlfriend) and he shouts out, “Is this what you wanted, Karissa?” I almost answered back, “No, Bradley Cooper, this isn’t what I wanted” because, who the heck was he talking to?
Turns out Jessica Biel’s character was named Charissa Sosa. Spelled differently than my name but, of course, on TV it sounds the same. Now, if your name is Paul or Jennifer or has ever reached the top 20 baby names during your lifetime (heck, if it’s reached the top 100 baby names during your lifetime) you may have trouble understanding why this was such an amazing moment for me. I have never watched a movie where a character had the same name as me. I can think of one book where a minor character had my name (spelled the same way even!). The book was “Miss Wyoming” by Douglas Coupland and the fact that that’s the only thing I remember about that book should tell you something.
When Peter and I watch movies or shows and there are characters named Peter, I always point that out to him. He’s never that excited. Now, I know my name isn’t so uncommon as to be shocking and I have met a few other Karissas/Carissas/Carisas/Karisas in my life. At my former job, my name was up on a list of staff picks and a young woman asked the staff which one of us was Karissa because that was her name too. I guarantee she wouldn’t have done that if we were both named Stephanie. Friends tell me of Karissa sightings.
When I googled “movie characters named karissa”, google asked me “Did you mean ‘movie characters named carissa?'”. Thanks Google. When I follow their suggested search, I discover a 1989 film called “Puppet Master” with a character named Carissa Stamford. It looks terrible. I might have to watch it. It’s thrilling to hear my name on TV.
Karissa Reads Books 
When I speak with people, they often think my name is Marissa or K/Carissa or Melissa or even Laura. I like having a different name! The only movie I have heard with my name for a character is Dr. Zhivago, but even then, it’s in its shortened form as Lara.
I’ve gotten Larissa occasionally. More often Melissa or Krista or Clarissa. Sometimes Theresa. If it’s someone I’ll probably never see again, I often don’t correct them. It’s like having multiple identities! I like having a unique name too.
Miss Wyoming was definitely one of his weaker books. But I just picked up Generation A (from Russell’s, natch), we’ll see how it goes.
You went to Russells? I’m jealous. I thought Generation A was a little weak personally. Came across as Coupland getting old and complaining about “kids these days”. I recently read Player One which was more along his usual apocalyptical delights.