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.

Here's the bit where I chime in with my sister's friend's mother who changed her name on marriage to Moyston Cummings, and thinks that's perfectly okay.

I only know the friend, who doesn't share that last name, and I don't think I could be formally introduced to the mother without dying on the spot.

I don't know how your friend manages to introduce her without dying on the spot.