the origin of odie (delving deeper than my roots)

i first became odie in 1998, when my crazy cousin, andrew burns, learned how to talk. he couldnt say emily or even emmy, which is what the little ones in my family prefer. so he called me odie. he would walk around the house yelling "odaodaodaodaodaodie!" when we met for lunch at gramma cia's, affectionately know as gramma or red gramma (for those who know black gramma, unrelated to black grandpa, who was married to red gramma).

andrew eventually learned the error of his ways and i became emily again, but the way of mothers is stronger than that of errors. when cj, for cameron james or ceej, was born, he learned to talk. not right away, but some time around 2001, he was quick. my mom thought odie was so cute she told ceej my name was odie and i was again odie.

i remember the first time cj called me emily, out of the blue one day after we got home from school. he was in kindergarten, i in 11th, i think. it broke my heart, like reality shattering glass. he was becoming a mature five year old with independent ideas and no time for cuddling and nicknames. when i moved out my brothers were pretty sad, i remember they cried the day they left me in pasadena, but since then they have called me odie when in good moods, so the tradition lives. my sister, you know her as nicole, i grew up with her as coley, to her dad she's nicky, to the younger kids in my family, coco, but my sister refers to me as em, both to me and to her baby sofie, short for sofia, you held sofie, remember at the mall? odie will die with my brothers.

being odie isnt easy. there were times when my mom stayed in bed on days off and cj was bored and annoying, no good, wouldnt leave, so stacy'd say,"odaaay comaang" over and over till i couldn't ignore them anymore i couldn't disappoint cj. i had to kidnap cj. i had to relieve my mom. cj was so lucky he was cute. there were times in public places when cj would call out in his high pitched angelic voice,"odie, bodie, fodie, godie, hodie, lodie, blodie", you cant rhyme odie without sounding ugly. i feel no shame in odie, though. i've learned to love and embrace the ode that is me.

odie is by far my best nickname. i've suffered emhead, emmers, emery, emmypoo, emmy, eemy, emely, and em. but i love nicknames, i love feeling comfortable enough to use them, i love when someone starts using one for me. i wish i had a nickname for you, but car, carry, men, cars, car car, ca ca, carvar, mr carmen, they dont work, you cant say them as fast as odie. hey, at least you werent named to be nicknamed like josh or luke or matt or chris or cathy or mike or nick or sofie or cj or dick. we are lucky in name, ours fit us so well, but not in name only.

we always have this: