Alexander Beetle ... my namesake

When I was a little girl I fell in love with the song “Alexander Beetle” by Melanie. I used to make my dad play it over and over and over on the 8-track player when we went anywhere in his car. He called me his little beetle (which is Zhook in Russian), and it kinda stuck.

My dad’s brothers’ friends (who were teenagers at the time) overheard him call me Zhook and started teasing me. They drove me crazy, every single day… ZHOOK! ZHOOK! But one day I decided to embrace it and even began stenciling “Zhook” on the back of my t-shirts, which I proudly wore to school (yay 80s)!

That is the genesis of my nickname. I still run into people whom I haven’t seen in years, who upon seeing me say, “Hey Zhook!”