Yeah, I'm pretty helpless in the face of someone actually having thought those jokes up. They win for that.

I sent an email to my parents asking which one of them made up my name. My mother has not answered (it was almost a week ago--she has replied to emails since), and when my father answered it was clear I'm in his address book as "suzanne" (case verbatim) not "ita". So I don't even know. No, he doesn't answer. He asks if it's a trick question.

are you sure either party is to blame and not another relative or someone else in attendance at your birth?

Where did suzanne come from?

The current explanation is that one of them, a few days after the birth, made a handwaving transition from "it" to "ita" with a sense of satisfaction and a conviction that there were little girls called that in Mexico where they had met and done the horizontal (perhaps) mambo and made my fetus. And gotten married. They totes did that too. When they had time. Neither that nor figuring out what to call the baby seemed to be priority for them.

And Amy, I have absolutely no idea why they chose that middle name. My sister got a Yoruba (mostly Nigerian tribe) (well, half a name, but at least they picked that half before she was born) first name and a Twi (Ghanaian tribe) middle name. Suzanne is pretty random, but they were clearly startled by the whole thing.

I really don't see you as a suzanne. Middle names are funny.

I tried using it solo a couple times, but oddly it seemed to really bother my father, so it never lasted long. I will cheerfully go as "ita suzanne" though, much more comfortably than using my last name, but papers, etc, etc.

(And I guess I have no really reason not to capitalise suzanne. I capitalise my last name. Still. Looks nice, all low.)

And did anyone help me with my punctuation question and I missed it?

And did anyone help me with my punctuation question and I missed it?

I looked at it, and mostly thought I would discourage using that many parenthetical asides (and I think dashes look cleaner).

But above is an example of how to punctuate. Punctuate the primary sentence, not what's inside the parentheses. If you're writing a complete sentence/thought in parentheses, I prefer it to stand alone.

Are they Leonard Cohen fans, maybe?

Your parenthetical question? I haven't seen an answer (and I use them way too much also).

I just found out that KCD, actually his wife, has a car for CJ. Somehow she has a spare that CJ can use to learn to drive and have once he has his license. Guess that means I can't fuss about insuring it since it costs me nothing. But still. No one TOLD me. CJ mentioned it off hand and I had to call KCD and ask.