On nicknames

So in one of my previous posts Bryan replied and called me "Skippee". That took me by surprise. Nicknames seem to be this organic thing where people you didn't expect to know a nickname just fall into it and start to use it. And "skippee", even though it is not spelled the way I prefer it to be (I like "Skippy" more, partially thanks to the Animaniacs reference), seems to have really stuck.

There is a short story behind the name. One day Jackie, Jer, Channing, and I were at Sandy's in Mountain View to spend a day cooking food and eating it. To prep for this we went to the market to by stuff. While the girls were in the checkout line, Channing and I stepped outside to wait. Some Girl Scouts were selling cookies. For some reason, while I was standing there, I made the comment that I felt like peanut butter. I don't remember if I specified creamy, but I did mean that since I don't like chunky PB.

unbeknownst to me, the girls were walking outside as I made this statement. Sandy walked right past me, said "come on, Skippee!" in her "Skippee" tone that she has, and the nickname has stuck ever since.

It's odd how such a random event has led to an alias that has so pervasively worked its way into the lingo of my friends. Obviously my Berkeley friends know it, but it seems everyone finds out about it eventually (Meesh picked up on it after she found my blog).

It just feels odd to have a nickname. The only other nickname anyone calls me is "Drifty". That one came about because I gave it to myself back when I started to play Quake online. I needed a name to use online and the name just popped into my head. It stems from the fact that when I was learning to drive I was still rather anal about geometric exactness with things and so I always kept my hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel. Not thinking about the fact that steering wheels do not necessarily directly correlate to the orientation of the tires I tended to have a slight drift. I remember I came to this realization on 101 (see, no "the"!) going north just before the tunnel north of Santa Barbara.

That nickname really got picked up by the OCF fellas. Since I used that when we played games in the lab everyone knew it very quickly and just continued to use it. Hell, some people still use it to this day when I see them (hi, Bem).

But having a nickname has not always come naturally to me. My mother specifically gave my brother and me names that could not be modified into anything to tease us with. With Brett, "brat" is about the worst anyone ever came up with. Otherwise my last name got attacked very unsuccessfully or people teased me for other things (such as my then very orange hair, my build, or being white).

So I didn't really grow up with nicknames. My parents called me "Tiger" and "Brettsky", but it was not a constant thing. So having a nickname that people call me constantly is, well, different. You would think I would be used to it by now since Sandy and Jer call me "Skippee", "Skipper", or "Skip" pretty much exclusively. But it is still just slightly odd. Guess it is better than what Sandy used to call me (don't even know how to spell it since it is Chinese).

And I am not saying everyone should stop calling me by any of my nicknames. It just isn't something I have grown up with.

And yet I use people's nicknames constantly if that is how they are introduced to me. Like I rarely call Jer by her full name. But for various other people I know who almost everyone calls by a nickname, I still call them by their full names. I guess I am a creature of habit.