But he was Penn!

Wow. It always weirds me out a little how much he looks like a guy I used to date. Even more so with that photo.

Connie,

that sounds like voter id law for a driver's license!

Georgia rolled out the same rules for renewing a driver's license recently, and the results have included endless lines, because even if you have the right paperwork, now all the people who were renewing online have to come in with the paperwork. And did they add any extra staff to deal with this forseeable problem? Nope.

Once again I huggle the Commonwealth I live in, which still lets you renew by phone or computer. And streamlines the RMV lines with a queuing system when you visit in person.

I leave you people for a couple hours and you're talking about a J--- R--- who isn't Jeremy Renner. Hmmmph.

I'm still carrying around my NYS license, because it's still good for a couple of years and I don't drive anyway, but I keep reminding myself that if I should happen to get a new job before then, I should get the MA license while I still work here, because apparently the best local office is pretty convenient to my office!

I made a zine in college called Your Furry Godmother about societal pressures to shave and wax. I should see if I can find any old copies of that. Good times with a copy machine.

Dude, if you can find them, I would love to see one!

Western societal norms about body hair on women drive me crazy. And yet I shave my legs and my pits, because I just don't want to deal with feeling judged if I don't. Bleh.

We are home! We've been visiting my parents for two weeks, a trip which included seeing most of my extended family at my cousin's wedding, plus tons of old friends. Tiring, but wonderful to see folks and introduce them to Rose. She did pretty well on the flights, too. She slept through both flights on the way up, and then coming home yesterday she slept through the first one and half of the second. Of course, she was pretty fussy when she did wake up, halfway from DC to Nashville, but at least it's a relatively short flight.

It's good to be home, but man, I miss Massachusetts like whoa.

What do you miss, Kate? The place? the weather? your family?

What do you miss, Kate? The place? the weather? your family?

All of the above, Kat. But mostly my friends and family. It's the place where I grew up -- not just in childhood, but in my 20s too -- and where so many of my chosen tribe live. It's hard to be so far away from them, especially now that many of us have kids. I wish Rose could grow up around their kids, and that I could rely on them for help & support the way they do with each other. I know we'll make, and are making, friends with kids in Nashville (including our own Gris!) who will come to serve much the same function. But I miss my old friends, and the ease of talking to them and being around them and being part of their lives.

I wonder how many women are going "So if I don't change my name when I get married, I won't have this grief", followed by "If I don't bother getting married at all . . ."

Identity Confirmation Laws are anti-marriage!

My mother had issues with getting an NJ drivers license because some of her ID things had her middle initial and some didn't. They said that they'd need something with the full middle name added to the pile of identity papers if she wanted the ones with just the middle initial to be valid.

In Pennsylvania, in order to get a drivers license, you need a social security card. I'm not sure what people who don't have those do, but I know that I needed one, and I'd just moved to PA and had no idea where my social security card was in the stack of boxes, so I had to get a new one.