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This was one of the two names P and I had to immediately strike off our list when I was expecting Valerie. I love Maria, he despises it, and he liked Shelby and I couldn't stand it. I'm not sure why I don't like it, as I kind of like Shelley, and I like other similar names like Ashley and Courtney. It's not a terrible name by any means, but I just don't like it.
If I have to picture a Shelby, I picture some pudgy hillbilly girl with a pink camo backpack, cussing like a sailor and smacking her bubble gum and thinking she's all hard as nails. Strangely, I always had that image of Shelby, but then very recently I read a collection of short fiction called "Mississippi Noir" and in the very first story, there's a Shelby who is exactly like this, and also wears a t-shirt that says "Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound." She also blows up her shack by fiddling with the gas lines underneath it to kill her stepfather when he lights up his first cigarette of the day.

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"It's one thing to be open-minded and quite another to be so open-minded your brains fall out."--Dear Abby
"Let other people push you around, and you deserve whatever bad things happen after that."--Lauren Bacall