dear thinkers of the year 2009:

*thanks to patrick for this link on facebook.

dose of hemingway

i'm jealous of the students who are taking the hemingway seminar at bsu this semester. to ease my jealousy, i decided to read "the sun also rises" solo.

sometimes i think there's something somewhat like divinity that directs me to works of literature that vibrate to that iron string in my chest at the perfect time. instead of musing and reflecting endlessly like i normally do in these blog posts, i'll simply transcribe the passage from hemingway's novel with scant background information for context.

the protagonist jake had been and still is in love with the beautiful brett ashley. she dated and lived with his friend robert cohn and is currently attached to michael at this point in the novel. jake hears brett and michael laughing (who are in bed in the room next to jake), and he can't sleep. jake realizes that he's been given a metaphorical "bill" for his relationship with brett and realizes he's been the one taking (acting on expectations, &c.).

"I thought I had paid for everything. Not like the woman pays and pays and pays. No idea of retribution or punishment. Just exchange of values. You gave up something and got something else. Or you worked for something. You paid some way for everything that was any good. I paid my way into things that I liked, so that I had a good time. Either you paid by learning about them, or by experience, or by taking chances, or by money. Enjoying living was learning to get your money's worth and knowing when you had it. You could get your money's worth. The world was a good place to buy in. It seemed like a fine philosophy. In five years, I thought, it will seem just as silly as all the other fine philosophies I've had."

word.

find some conversation

the oddest things set me off these days: "say yes to the dress" premiere, my pink chair (that i was trying to cover with a black sheet even though the chair is perfect fine pink), and my boyfriend's silly quest to figure out a nickname for me even though i rather despise nicknames. truly, my long unemployed days give me too much time to ponder and reflect my existence (and books like "play it as it lays" by joan didion surely don't encourage anything else). i'd like to dedicate this blog post to the exploration of nicknames: what they are and possibly their effect on our self-perception.

according to wikipedia, a nickname is "a descriptive name given in place of or in addition to the official name of a person, place, or thing." nicknames can be broken down into a few different categories such as: shortened names, titles or pseudonyms, and hypocoristic names (like terms of endearment or diminutives).

my parents ascribed me a nickname early in my childhood: andi. this shortened name-- or contraction-- served as an alternate to my full name; i think of it as a cuter version of "andrea." it's also harder to mispronounce. "andi" lasted a few years, but my paternal grandmother used to taunt me with a line from a childhood nursery rhyme: "andy pandy pudding pie kissed the boys and made them cry." when i was 4 or 5, kissing boys seemed like a vile activity that i did not want any part of. i boycotted "andi." in high school, a few friends tried out "drea" as a contraction, but that didn't stick either. "drea." the end. some remnants. a left over.

titles are rather short on my nickname list. past students called me several combinations of: miss johnson, mrs. johnson, ms. johnson, professor johnson, YOU. one family i babysit for calls me "miss andrea," which the mother insisted on because it creates a "clear boundary of authority." the pseudonym list is much longer:

• roadrunner: in 5th grade, my friends and i decided to form the "WB gang" or "warner bros gang" and title ourselves after WB cartoon characters. i was roadrunner. there was tweety, sylvester, and others. perhaps i resembled a roadrunner: i was a fast runner in my black suede hi-tops (i was stylin'), and i was rather slender.
• lucy dew: in 7th grade, mostly the same friends and i gave each other nicknames with a first and last name. the first name was some sort of trendy, cute girl name and the last name consisted of a kind of soda. i picked lucy after the hanson song "lucy," which i thought was a beautifully simple and sad love song. mountain dew was my favorite soda. i combined these two names to represent some aspect of my identity-- perhaps that i wanted to be a cute, longed-for sweetie.
• shandelle lynn carter and sari: when i was 14 and 15, i went through a weird, dark phase. i created a new name for myself because i could imagine a different me that was more elegant (doesn't shandelle sound pretty? it looks nice when you write it too) and flowy. "sari" was the name of a character in a christopher pike book that i no longer remember; she was a vampire. my french teacher wanted us to pick nicknames to use in french class (why? i don't remember), so i picked sari. i dotted the "i" with a star on all my papers.

in most of these cases, my nicknames were self-chosen. i was able to present someone else with a fake name, a persona, a label that perhaps better indicated my personality or how i'd like to be perceived. long after i created and abandoned these fake names, i looked up "andrea" in a baby name book, and under "name associations" for "andrea," it read: "fat." great. my ex-boyfriend also stated once that "andrea" reminded him of an annoying loud-mouth. great. no wonder i made up nicknames for myself. according to professors of communcation eimi lev and anat lewinsky from the university of haifi, israel, "nicknames are thought to reflect a person's identity better than the formal name." in my younger years and in my professional life, perhaps "andrea" just doesn't cut it.

terms of endearment-- or hypocorisitcs, basically the best word ever-- are really what ignited this reflection in the first place. we all have pet names for others, and we all have been called a hypocoristic. these are usually assigned by others and for some explicit purpose, and my list of "endearments" over the years is quite interesting. my friends have called/still call me:

• girly girl
• pudding cup
• sweets
• pumpkin pie
• andre the giant
• kiddo

they are a good combination of labels (like "girly"), terms of affection (like "sweets"), and sarcastic pokes (like "andre the giant"). these nicknames indicate that my friends view me as something pleasant and feminine (with one blatant exception). and i am.

the boys in my life also ascribe fairly diverse hypocoristics:

• poopy, poophead, poopface: brett and i certainly loved each other (as we should have after 4 years together), but i think we had an odd way of showing it. we each called each other a combination of poop + body part.
• my love: i'm pretty sure brett came up with this from the scene in "dumb and dumber" when lloyd drops off mary at the airport, reaches out his arm to her, says, "goodbye, my love..." as he runs into a car and deploys the airbag.
• babe
• sweetheart
• sunshine: apparently, i wake up happy and full of energy. apparently, this is enough to warrant a hypocoristic related to my AM-demeanor.
• lil girl: this was from the cardiologist, and it used to sort of weird me out.

all of these nicknames demonstrate how others perceived me. i think these nicknames also affected me and my own perception of how i functioned in the relationship: i was the annoying one, the loved one, the sweet one, the happy one, the young one. can my role in a relationship always be relegated to x? especially in terms of what the other is not?

my current boyfriend has been trying out different nicknames for me, which has been an interesting exercise that has revealed what he seems to like/value about me:

• baby
• snookums
• gigglesworth
• lil asian

"baby" and "lil" are diminutive nicknames (and they usually come into play when i'm being difficult, much like a child), and "snookums" functions much like "sweets" by indicating a desired pleasantry. i do giggle. and i am asian. i think he's rather fascinated with my being short. and my being asian. although i really don't like that nickname...

our nicknames indicate what we think of ourselves-- both to ourselves and others. i'm interested in the desire we each have to represent ourselves to others with nicknames as both labels and symbols. i think our nicknames do have an effect on how we perceive ourselves and our relationships with others. perhaps we're just looking for that connection.

fact versus feeling

i truly love babysitting. i get paid to have fun, eat sweet treats, and be told that i'm the coolest big kid ever. (always good for the ol' self-esteem.)

today, i was playing tetherball with a set of nearly-eight-year-old triplets (two boys, one girl), and they were marveling at my ball-on-rope hitting abilities.

"whoa! she just did an airplane!"
"you are sooo good, miss andrea! do you practice?"

(i have no idea what an airplane is, and i haven't been told i'm good at any sports-related activities since i was... oh wait, never.)

but it's my rule to always let the kids win whenever i can. so i started to go "easy." the other two kids were cheering me on when i pounded the ball with fist-shattering pain to untether it...

as it thwacked scott in the face.

like a hollow sucking sound combined with slapping something wet. it was followed quickly with him collapsing to the grass, hands clasped against his cheek. the two on-lookers gasped and ran to his side.

i think i screamed somewhere in the midst of all the trouble.

but then, like a resilient nearly-eight-year-old boy with an ego and ability to forgive and forget, he arose and smiled and grabbed the ball-- confused as to why i was visibly freaking out. i asked him if he was okay, if he needed ice on his cheek, that i was sorry, and that he could stop playing and go inside and lie down. he ignored all of my pleadings and wanted to keep playing.

later, scott looked at me.

"miss andrea, how old are you?"
"23."
"is that old?"
"sometimes i feel old."

pause.

"you feel? why do you FEEL old?"
"i just do."
"well, why does it matter if you feel old? ARE you old?"
"yes, i'm old compared to you."

the conversation continued for a little while, but i pondered his words for quite a long time after. (are you surprised?) perhaps the ability to distinguish between fact and feeling, between events and emotions, between mind and heart.

i need to remind myself of this. mind over matter.

i got mad skillz yo

the skills section on my resume is blank. after pouting myself into oblivion, i decided that i do-- indeed-- have skills. not only are they enviable, but they've all been developed by board games. here's a quick brag list:

game: monopoly
skill: selecting a formidable yet fun game piece as i strategically purchase real estate with hard-earned cash. no one wants to be wrongfully represented; just ask 18th century americans.

game: boggle
skill: seeking unique (yet viable) answers using a perceptive and analytical mind. not only are my answers reasonable but they often receive "oh yes, why didn't i see that?" which clearly shows i can acquire intellectual praise.

game: scrabble
skill: working with what i've been given as best as i can (and when i can't, i can tactfully persuade others using altered precedent to establish that "azule" is absolutely a word- you know it as the uncommon synonym for cerulean and other elite crayon colors from elementary school).

game: stratego
skill: using deductive reasoning and skillful assumptions to assert my position over others.

game: pictionary
skill: effective communication in the form of simplicity-- especially when working with a useless team of complete morons who repeat "boat! boat! boat! ship? boat! boat! boat!" when i'm clearly drawing a baby carriage.

game: scattergories
skill: producing fast responses while working under the obnoxious buzzing deadline. my creative thinking earns me extra points above the ordinary-thinking minions.

game: risk
skill: world domination. enough said.

game: cranium
skill: exemplifying a well-rounded education, including working knowledge of standard lexicons and word puzzles, nonstandard trivia, good-smelling purple clay, and cheesy hollywood tunes.

game: sorry
skill: demonstrating motivation to reach the top while still exercising humility and respect for others with a totally insincere apology for screwing over another player.

game: blokus
skill: utilizing spatial relations and foresight to diplomatically foil an opponent while still maintaining pleasant small-talk and friendly relations beyond the task at hand.

game: apples to apples
skill: knowing when to play it safe ("funny" + "jim carrey") and when to risk it ("sexy" + "beer bellies") by reading and researching individual preferences and then tailoring my responses to what will ultimately result in success.

there's no way anyone could turn me down.