In my family (not siblings, but spread out on both sides) we have had a Jack, Jackie (male), Julia, Julia, Jacqueline, Judy, Gene, George and George. My mom, bless her, has consistently spent my entire life calling me "Judy" and her kid sister "Jacqueline," especially when she's stressed or rushed.

I'm pretty sure that one of my brothers was slated to be named "Jennifer" if he'd been a girl (the other one would've been "Michelle," but I can't remember which would have been which). I still kind of wish I'd gotten a sister in there somwhere (ita ! is making me wish it a lot lately; her relationship with her sister seems so much made of win), but name-wise the whole family definitely dodged a bullet there. None of us would ever have been known by our right names again.

There is a guy here whose surname is Love and I CAN'T WORK WITH HIM.

I'm writing a piece about an organization run by a Nancy Yancey.

I know I have mentioned it before, but I used occasionally have to call this guy in IT named "Dick Godown". Pronounced "Go Down". Then, I ended up having to order live pelvic models from his daughter Heather Godown.

I had to sit through an hour of anti-sexual harassment training this morning.

I honestly think I might have preferred an hour of mansplaining.

her relationship with her sister seems so much made of win

I have to say, I raised her right.

I can't wait to bitch to her about the t-shirt process. After I revealed the final design to her friends, the friends who knew me the least came back and said "Hey! If you haven't bought it yet, change it to put the PB quote back in!" (I took it out for space in the composition--I'd been one photo short when it was originally there). The friend who knew me (I met her at McGill) said that I was tired of dealing with them all (cat herding was her term), and all family had to say was "Thank you for accidentally making my shirt a V-neck."

So, you know. Oh, and her ex--perfectly well behaved, except he can apparently go a week without reading personal email, which IS CRAZY TALK.

Someone came over from the next row of cubes to smell my stinky lunch, but he said he liked the smell, and I should forget the haters, and keep on with my garlicky self.

Oh, and one of the people involved with the shirt is Moyston-Cumming's daughter.

One of the facility engineers I work with is named Jennifer Lopez.

I'm sure she hears too much about that, so I've never said a damn thing about her name.

I apologized to the contractor for putting her in the middle of my Thing with My Nemesis, and recommended the mochas at the new chocolate shop a few blocks away. Go me. Really good mochas there, but spendy.

Oh- I forgot we have a professor named Sharon Stone!

If someone uses a word in a business document that you don't understand but doesn't look technical, don't you just look it up? I'm getting so much flak for my not-business-writing. In a week, I've been called up on:

• thrust
• canonical
• akin

by three different people. Thrust, they damned well knew what it meant. Canonical, he thought was religious, thought he'd caught me out, found out it was actually the perfect word, except no one knows what it means (it is the second time I've been called on it, and the first time, the guy refused to believe its definition--I clearly don't learn, BUT I AM NOT THE ONE WHO NEEDS TO GIVE HERE). Actually, the canonical guy is totally cool. He liked the word, and joked about catching on it. And I just got called on akin, because he didn't know it was a word, and he thinks he's going to forget what it means by tomorrow when he has to explain that entry to the group, and he's sure he's going to be asked by our manager, because clearly no one knows what akin means.

And I have just realised that "akin" and Akin...yeah.

Anyway--he asked why I couldn't just have written "similar". Uh, because akin is shorter, and y'all need to...this is not like when my sister insisted that she should be able to put sine qua non in the speech she was writing for the Jamaican civil servant.

This is entirely different....

Canonical does tend to be either religious or literary-specific and I can vaguely understand someone blinking at it for just a second before it settles in, but thrust and akin?

Thrust and akin?? That's weird.

Sometimes she'll start with her oldest child's name and work her way down until she gets to the right child.

Hah. We always did that, but mom would throw in the dog's name for good measure...

hen, I ended up having to order live pelvic models from his daughter Heather Godown.

Um, forget the name--WTF is a live pelvic model!? Does someone get up and model their pelvis for the class!?!?