When one of you works in a major cultural heritage institution that commands a serious amount of old money, and somewhere in both your family trees you have some WASP. Somewhere. Way back. Way, way back.

“Actual donor nicknames I have had to use in formal correspondence: Dodo, Muffy, Tigger, Poohdie, Happy, Bunny. And I know I’m forgetting some. They’re all so unbelievably infantalizing.”

“We need WASP nicknames. Stat.”

“I feel like yours could be Kitty from Cat [my high school nickname] or Cake/Cakey/Cakes from Cadence Kirk… or literally anything because there’s no rhyme or reason to these things. Or Kittycakes.”

“Horror. One of Jeff’s nickames for me is ‘Kitty,’ largely because I hide things under the sofa and forget about them, but still.”

“I’m blanking on mine, but probably something like Tutu or Diva, which would probably come out something like Tutti or Divvy. And of course Jeff needs to start spelling his name ‘Geoffrey’ and adding a III or IV at the end of it.”

“Back in the days when I did blog aliases I referred to him as ‘Geoffrey’ once and he nearly broke up with me in revolt. How can you bear to be friends with such a plebe like me?”

“Better Jeffrey than Joffrey.”

– Katarina and C.