E

EDWIN & EDNA

I can't remember the last time Dave called me Jessie.  He knows my name.  He just doesn't use it.*  When he does call me Jessie, I usually think that there's something terribly wrong.  That he swallowed a peanut or some fish or is choking.

I imagine that he called me Jessie when we first met, but shortly thereafter be began calling me JD.  I liked JD.  It reminded me of the time in elementary school when I tried to get everyone to call me JJ.  My mom called me JJ for about a week, but no one else did.  Thanks, Mom.  You're the best!

A couple of years ago, Dave stumbled upon the name Edna for me.  Neither of us can remember how it came about, but it stuck and now I readily answer to it.  Even in public.  I thought it appropriate for Dave to have his own nickname, so I started calling him Edwin.  Now we're Edwin and Edna.  A hip couple in our 30s.

There are, of course, variations on these names.  Na.  Win.  NaWin.  Windom.  Edwina.  I can't explain, however, why Dave recently began calling me Wilson.  I think it's a reference to Cast Away.  The movie where Tom Hanks gets stranded on an island and talks to the volleyball, Wilson, to keep from going crazy (or to demonstrate that he is crazy, I'm not sure which).  Probably I should feel flattered that Dave thinks of me as his volleyball on this island we call life.

Probably.

*Also, he spells it wrong occasionally.  Our season tickets to the Guthrie, for example, read David and Jesse.