The Notebook

For the past two and a half years, I’ve been intending to watch The Notebook.

It all started around the time that we chose Noah’s name. It didn’t take long for the first girl (it was always a girl) to add two and two together to make eight.

“OH! How cute! Ali and Noah. Are you naming your children after The Notebook?”

“Um, no. I’ve never seen The Notebook. Are those the character’s names?”

“Yes!!”

“Dang it.”

Sure enough, every few months, I would see The Notebook Light Bulb go off over some female’s head.

“Noah and Ali!! AWWWWW!!!! I LOVE The Notebook!”

Even though I wasn’t too thrilled with the situation of having people assume I’d named my kids after Nicholas Sparks characters (I’d watched A Walk to Remember and had decided that Nick had too much of a tragic mindset for my taste), I figured that I should probably know “The Noah and Allie experience” so that at least I knew what females were thinking about me when they made their assumptions.

So it sat in our Netflix queue for a while…then I found it for $5 at Target (which was less trouble than actually getting around to our Netflix queue)…and so it sat on our entertainment system for even longer.

Every now and then, I’d suggest watching it, but Chris would veto me. And not because he’s opposed to mooshy movies (he’s an equal opportunist when it comes to genre – Saving Private Ryan, Pride and Prejudice, and Star Trek/Wars are all cool with him) – it would be because he wasn’t in the mood to cry, and we both assumed it was quite tragic.

Finally, last Friday night, Chris and I must have been in the exact perfect emotional state. There was a three-day weekend ahead of us…the kids were in bed on time…we were prepared in case of tragedy.

So I popped it in, we snuggled up, and we watched the movie.

I’m assuming that we are the last people on Earth to watch The Notebook. And as such, here are my thoughts, spoilers though they may be.

– I seriously doubt that 1700’s piano could have still been in even a remotely recognizable state of tune. But yet she was able to play it. And not a single key stuck. Four of our keys stick and our piano isn’t even from the mid-1900’s. Let’s have a bit of realism, Sparky.

– What ever happened to Noah’s luggage? He rode the bus to Charleston…ran off of the bus to catch up with Allie, and then…did he go to the bus station and find his luggage? In his morose sadness at seeing her kiss another man, did he abandon his luggage? IS HIS LUGGAGE SITTING AT UNCLAIMED BAGGAGE IN SCOTTSBORO ALABAMA RIGHT THIS SECOND?? I must have closure on this issue.

– If Allie really was crying herself to sleep every single night over the fact that Noah hadn’t written, don’t you think she could have taken a wee bit of initiative and, say, walked to the mailbox herself just one time in 365 days? I mean seriously, Allie. I thought you had spunk.

(And the fresh air would have probably helped your chronic depression, too.)

– Allie’s mother’s exposing dance move was disturbing on a very deep level and is still emblazoned in my mind. Thank goodness that Chris and I never went dancing with our parents.

– What happened to Lon, the nice, extremely rich young man? I have some single friends that I would love to set him up with…

– When  Allie was driving while crying and almost hit a big truck, all I could think about was Downton Abbey. STUPID DOWNTON ABBEY. They could take some lessons in NOT crashing cars and killing key characters.

For the record, I did not cry during the movie, although it did make me feel all kinds of romantic feelings toward my husband. I did, however, cry the next day while creating Noah a car playlist of the various and quite random songs that we sing him at bedtime,

Bedtime Playlist
when  “You are my Sunshine” by Johnny Cash started playing. And he sounded old, decrepit, and just like Old Noah would sound if singing to Old Allie.

Then I cried.

But I’m blaming that on having just left the eye doctor due to an adverse reaction to conjunctivitis steroids which created huge amounts of pressure in my eyeballs.

The tears had to get out somehow, right?

So there you go. We did not name our kids after a movie. And we never would have, because I would have first needed to know what happened to the luggage.

22 thoughts on “An Analysis of the Not the Namesake of my Children.

  1. OMG!! You warned us about Notebook spoilers, but not about Downton spoilers! Eeeek I just finished season 2. Who is it?? Don’t tell me. It’s Matthew, isn’t it?? Don’t tell me!

    1. Oh I’m sorry! Although I’m impressed you lived through January on earth (then again you could have been on the International Space Station) and don’t already know. But I won’t say a word!

  2. Why would there be luggage? Didn’t he go to Scottsboro to have some building plans approved or something? I always assumed it was just a day trip….
    Greetings from Germany!
    (And while I write: Thanks for the Jeans advice, I still hate pants shopping, but it helps!)

    1. Hm…you make a good point. Perhaps he didn’t stay overnight. It was only two hours from Charleston…

      And nice to meet you! You’re the second reader I have whose blog is in German and I can’t understand a bit of it. :-)

  3. So, the Notebook is one of my favorite movies, and by favorite I mean I could watch it an infinite amount of times and never get tired of it, I can also quote pretty much the entire movie word for word. And yet, somehow, it never even occurred to me that your children had the same names as the main characters…perhaps because you rarely write both of their names right next to each other? Perhaps because I have stopped paying attention to details? Perhaps because I hope that no one would name their son and daughter both after 2 people who were romantically involved? Because,well, that’s just weird!

    1. Yes, I agree on the weird thing – when I was putting together a photo of the two Ali (Allie)’s and Noah’s, I felt really weird using one where The Notebook duo were kissing. It took a while to find an innocent shot!

    2. I’ve seen the movie a handful of times and it also never occurred to me that your kids had the same names.

      I have always wondered how Noah got off the ferris wheel at the beginning of the movie. Did he have to hang there that much longer until he was close enough to jump? How did he know when to jump? He seemed confident in his hanging abilities, what’s the background on that?

      I liked the movie a lot more before I was married because now when I watch it I only think about about what’ll happen when my husband and I get old. Then I cry (but only internally, very rarely do I actually shed tears during movies).

  4. For the record I have seen the Notebook several times and never once did it occur to me that you named your children after it. However I totally feel your pain. My son Damon is 3 years old and I get asked all the time if I named him after Damon on the Vampire Diaries…apparently he is quite handsome. (I did not and wasn’t even aware of the show until Damon was 18 months old). Very frustrating.

    1. Yes, I avoided any super popular television or movie names when naming my children. Chandler? Right out. Along with Ross, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, and…um…Rachel.

      …but I’ve never seen the Vampire Diaries, so I would have never asked you that!

  5. I’m glad you didn’t watch the movie before you had children or they might not have been Ali & Noah! And those names are too cute!

  6. I’ve never seen The Notebook, either because I have the same Nicholas Sparks aversion! I caught about ten minutes of A Walk to Remember and officially broke up with Sparks forever. Life can be depressing enough without watching movies about doomed love. I can’t believe that people even comment about The Notebook connection. Ali and Noah are both great, classic names on their own. It’s not like you named them Romeo and Juliet!

  7. i have not seen it either. while i do enjoy an occasional chick flick, for the most part, they are just too indulgent and fake for me. i’ve just always assumed that this movie was over the top since everyone cries about it. no thank you! glad your children’s names came out of your own head.

  8. So funny that I’d never made the connection…of course, I watched the movie shortly after it came out and I didn’t love it…way too much drama for me, so I guess I just put it out of my mind. I definitely think his stuff is too depressing. I prefer a good romantic comedy! Or even just a comedy. But romantic drama not so much, and T definitely doesn’t like it!

  9. Don’t feel bad. We have the royal couple; also not at all intended.

    And I’ve never seen the notebook but I am so tired I’m not sure I processed more than the first paragraph of this post. I need to come back tomorrow when my eyelids are able to hold themselves open! :)

  10. I’ve never seen the notebook either – should I? I think my brother in law has the book somewhere but surprisingly I haven’t read it either.

    Seems weird to assume you named your kids after the movie; not like they are twins. Kind of creepy assumption! Mind you, I get asked all the time if my nephew Xander is named after a Buffy character (I’ve never actually inquired)

  11. I put myself in a very similar situation and didn’t realize it until some young girls informed me that the guy on Walk to Remember’s name is Landon Carter, I get that lightbulb reaction at least once a month.

Leave a Reply to Stephy_B Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *