So, I'm Chicken. Not a chicken, THE Chicken, Chicken Hoffman. Why the strange nickname? I can thank my father for that. He started calling me Chicken when I was a newborn. It's the same as a pet name like "Pumpkin" or "Bunny", but instead it's the bird that can't fly, the bird we Americans tend to eat for many a Sunday supper. I have a telegram (people under the age of 25 won't know what that is) in a baby album from one of my dad's trips to Hong Kong or Europe that starts, "Dear Chicken" and ends "Love, Daddy". It stuck. And he only uses that nickname when writing to me - hand written notes when he sends me an article from the paper, emails or greeting cards. In person he always calls me Sweetie or by my full name, Alexandra. Strange but true. As a matter of fact, my (personal) email is chickenhoffman@... because after I graduated college in 1999 he was the only person I emailed. Never occured to be that we'd email to the extent we're all used to now, and I never bothered to change it. It's different, it's weird - and people remember it! Sometimes I meet people and they'll say, "Oh! You're Chicken Hoffman!" Why, yes, yes I am.
I find nicknames to be very interesting. I simply adore having a little inside joke with a friend. It's a sign of intimacy. Most of my close friends from college, for example, I call by their last names. I didn't play on a sports team with them or anything like that, it just happened that way. They also happen to have pretty cool last names like Pouch, Moody, Melone. Their sir names roll off the tongue so well. My best friend's nickname is a longer version of her real name, Kate - I call her Katers. Or a variety of other names that will pop up on this blog over time. Once I had a boyfriend who wouldn't let me call him by his last name. He said it was too much like I was one of the guys and since I was his girl I had to call him by his real name. I like that too, even though it goes against my theory of nicknames being intimate. Perhaps the last name thing isn't intimacy as much as one step removed - for guys at least. Currently, I easily refer to one friend as Shit Nugget or Nuggs, for short. She seems to like it, or at the very least she's appeasing me and my love for the clever, or stupid, nickname. And to her I am simply, Hoff.
So, fair reader(s) - that's the round about reason/story of why I named this blog Dating for Chickens. Just made sense in some twisted nicknamed way.
Tomorrow I'll write about something more... er, less intimate.
Adios for now.
Hey Alex,
ReplyDeleteSo far, this is a fun little blog, and look forward to reading your exploits.
A little advice someone gave me when I started my blog, and you can tell me to fuck off if you don't want to hear it, but I will pass along the same advice that was passed on to me.
Don't only write words. People get bored reading words-- just words... Include some pictures and videos to accentuate your stories. Sometimes people come to a blog, scroll down, see words and leave. Pictures make people stay and then maybe even read what you have to say.
For example, you could have had a picture of the biggest zit in the world next to your first story as you mentioned his zit... Maybe include pictures of the bar you went to etc.
Otherwise, hope all is well and I'll probably run into you in a year or 5.