health ~ma all around. but especially to Hil's mom and Karen.

am I getting sucked into the September screw-with-the-head thing? Next week, I'm in Baltimore for 3 days (Mon-Wed). Meetings and conducting systems training for most of 2, helping a friend in his district for a few hours on election day, and a little (eep) dermatology-exercise on Wednesday. I'm staying with one set of Iris' godparents and extremely psyched about that. The other set of godparents have offered the use of one of their cars. But. Butbutbut. Iris is nearly 3 and I haven't spent more than 8 or 9 hours away from her ever - certainly not overnight. I've been sick (god awful daycare flu, tyvm), but not completely out of reach. Two nights - possibly three if the dermatology-thing is more painful than not - seems extremely long.

I freaked when she cranked a fever on Tuesday and I was in Baltimore. DH was amazing and took great care of her. But still. So now, I have that worry-bug. PLUS all the press coverage of new scary-sama (hey, we never DID find that guy, did we?) and the angst and worry, I know I'm going to be completely wound for the full 3 days.

I am completely awestruck that people can live through this around the world on a daily basis and horrified that I am cranking about it for three mere days.

blarg. help.

I have 5 names. This comes from having had my name changed several times since I was born. I was born Aimee Middlename Mother'sLastname. When I was 6, my dad adopted me and I became Aimee Middlename Father'sLastname. When I married Joe, I joined them all up and became Aimee Middlename Mother'sMaidenname Father'sLastname Conat. No hyphenating, though, and I mostly go by Aimee Father'sLastname Conat. Eventually, it will be Aimee Middlename Mother'sMaidenname Father'sLastname Conat Radcliffe.

With Em, using my Father's last name was important to me so it's also a part of her middle name which means she'll have lots of names to.

All your names are belong to me!!

Also, if you want close attention to detail talk to a fetishist. I'm sure The Boy could give a dissertation on rope maintenance.

Heh. You mean, like he did when we all had dinner in North Beach?

I have no idea if The Boy and I will ever get married, since the living-in-sin has been enough of a HUGE life change to wrangle/plan (and we haven't even carried it out yet!), but I strongly prefer to keep my last name. I realize it's my dad's last name, and therefore still a patriarchal tradition, but it's been *mine* for 36 years, and I intend to keep it.

I've had a few cousins who went by other names but then went back to their legal names.

Growing up I kept thinking I'd go by middle name, but I never made the change. Mom always called me Ali but I never went by that in school because Ali LastName is very rhymey and I had enough to deal with. But more and more I'm introducing myself as ali. I already sign most of my email that way, which stems from leaving notes to my parents and signing them ali. However, because of the rhyme issue I don't introduce myself as Ali Last Name, if I can remember I'll say "you can call me ali" but I tend to forget.

If I get married I don't know what I'll do about my name, I used to say if I was marrying someone with a common name I'd take it, just to get away from spelling my last name all the time.

And it's such a weird thing but I prefer to use the lower case a in ali and askye when I'm typing them becuase the pointy-ness of the typed capital A bothers me when it's used with my name. Not with anything else, just my name.

I tried for a brief while to go by "AJ" in high school. It didn't catch on.

I know I'm going to be completely wound for the full 3 days

And I know that T and Iris will do just fine. I do understand your worry in the abstract (not having any experience myself) and I think it's right and good to miss your family but I also think it's right and good to be able to put yourself and what you need to do near the top of the list every once in a while.

And I really should have had you take a look at one of my spots which may be changing, since it's on the back of my shoulder where I can feel it but can't really see it. My DH is sorta useless because his only reaction is, "ER! We have to take you to the ER!"

I've always thought it would be nifty to create a society in which couples would take the same name, which would be a combination of their respective family names, thus creating a new family name.

I know people who did that. She was Winters and he was Neufeld, so now they're Winterfeld.

I know people who did that

Me, too. We tend to call my one sister's family the Murphingers, but this was never a serious thought as much as my family's habitual morphing of words and coming up with nicknames.

Aren't Our Nora and Tom the McWaringles? Okay, not legally.

My father suggested that family friends B. Lamb and V. Munn should acronym to Nnummbal, to be pronounced "Numb ball." They decided against this, and kept their names.

They decided against this

Can't imagine why.