Welcome to Forgotonia

A note about this post: despite what you might begin picturing, I am not, as of this writing, wearing Birkenstocks, eating out of a bag of homemade soy-granola, or stinking up the local library because of my refusal to wear chemical-laden anti-perspirant.

You may, however, go ahead and call me a tree-hugger. (Or if you can come up with something catchy and alliterative for “obsessive recycler who freaks out if she sees nary a Post-it going into the trash,” let me know.)

Chapter 1: Footprints in the (Toxic, e-Polluted) Sand

If you’ve stopped by here recently, you now know that I have some difficulty letting go of sentimental things.

But now I must admit that it’s not just mementos I find hard to throw away.

I feel incredibly guilty any time I know I’m throwing away something that will end up in a landfill.

And that’s on a regular day. The moving process only increases this anxiety.

Dragging old mattresses and box springs to the curb, (as I did on moving day), makes me not only worry about the environmental footprint I’m leaving, but also, about how many other people in the world are dragging their crap to the curb on a regular basis and don’t give a f#$%. (Like the neighbors in our apartment complex who left this the other morning. I had to fight the urge to chase after them and beat them with a bamboo-handled, made-from-repurposed-dental-floss tennis racket. [Just kidding, they don't make those. ...do they?])

And it’s not just the broken futons I’ve deposited over the decades that make me feel bad. I hate throwing burned CDs in the trash. I’m not worried about whatever data might be on them, so much as how the physical thing is (not) going to break down.

And I need to know that when I do finally force myself to part with my good-attendance certificate from sixth grade, I can at least make “use” of my trash.

So as soon as I moved to Davenport to join my husband a month ago, I began gently but firmly insisting that we needed to start sorting out recyclables even though the apartment complex doesn’t have curbside pickup. Doing so, however, would create even more clutter in our apartment, (and perhaps it’s not a stretch to say my husband, C-NOR, is a bit of an anti-clutter fascist.)

But upon watching him throw a “perfectly good” milk jug into the “regular” trash, I shuddered, then walked over to the can and retrieved the offending numeral-one-in-a-triangle receptacle: “Nuh-uh. We are so not doing that.”

And that’s only a hint at my level of  obsession.

Chapter 2: Doing the Can-Can

For several months this past year,  when I would go out for a walk–especially in late spring after the college kids had vacated the rental premises near the campus–I’d take along a plastic bag and pick up bagfuls of empty beer cans so I could recycle them.

It felt like a sort of twisted, adults-only Easter egg hunt, like, I spy a Four Loko under that bush! And then I’d actually scurry over to get my hands on the giant thing before some other crazed recycling-addict could get their grubby paws on it. (Or more like get their paws grubby on it. But whatever.)

 

True, this strange hobby sometimes earned me looks from people driving by. (Sometimes I worried about seeing myself in the police blotter:

“At 5 p.m. Monday, a resident reported seeing a woman in business-casual attire, in the front yard of  house at the corner of University Drive and Rental Apartment Row, allegedly in a scuffle with a transient over a tobacco-spit-containing can of Keystone.“

But I did gather, and recycle, hundreds of empty cans from those littered lawns.

So of course there was no way I could live in this new Dumpster-only apartment complex without coming up with some sort of solution.

Chapter 3: Fling, Flang, Flung

My first week here, (rather than sending out resumes to become more than marginally employed), I Googled and called around until finally figuring out how and where to take our recyclables.

Luckily, I discovered there is a drop-off facility just a few miles from where we live.

But it’s still less than convenient to take the items to this place ourselves. And rather than store our rinsed-out refuse in a garage, (which we don’t have), we have to find an out-of-the-way place and organized way to let stuff accumulate until there’s enough of a pile to necessitate a trip to the facility.

At first I thought I had come up with a genius solution.

When we were planning our wedding and reception earlier this year, one of my goals was  to be as eco-friendly as possible. I found recyclable beer cups (did I mention our wedding reception, was, technically, a kegger? See profile pic at right), and I ordered some pop-up recycling containers called Flings, in which guests were asked to deposit the ceremony programs and, later, their empty cups.

The handy little pop-up receptacles were smaller than I had hoped, but they held up well and did the trick.

So I figured we could use one of these in the apartment for our junk paper.

But I had that thing stuffed in, like, an hour after moving in.

And then when I took it to the recycling facility, I had to upend it inside the mouth of the giant bin, which is protected by these rubber-curtain flappy things. In the process of trying to shake the stuff out of the container and into the bin, my genius solution collapsed in on itself and got caught in the rubber flaps.

Finally, I got so frustrated I just dumped the whole damn Fling in there and stomped away in a huff, startling the retired grandpa guy behind me with my foul mouth. (Sorry, sir.)

Finally, a few days later, I ordered a set of matching, wipe-able-out-able color-coded bags on Amazon.

So now we’re hiding them behind the kitchen table–until they fill up and it’s time to take them to the facility. (But only if it’s not rainy, cold, too dark out, too early, too late, or, is a Tuesday and I just don’t feel like it. You blame me? You take it there, then. Isn’t it your turn, anyway? Oh and the dishes too. Thanks!)

This would be just one of the many cards I found in this Reebox box stuffed full of cards, as part of my ongoing process of trying to get moved in and pared down. This would be, more specifically, a card from my 8th-grade graduation, May 1991.

As I mentioned recently, I’ve been trying to get rid of stuff as the result of moving to a smaller space.

It’s taken a lot for me to get this point, but, I now want to keep things only if I can state a solid reason:

• “This inspires me.”
• “This reminds me (in a non-depressing way) of someone I will never see again.”
  and/or,
• “I’m actually, for certain, going to use this, and it will happen on [this specific date].”

But despite this new sense of empowerment, I’m still struggling with a philosophical problem. Let’s call it “The Aging Hipster Faces Her Existential Angst.”

Chapter 1: Shirting the Issue

During the move, I unearthed from the back of the closet a bunch of concert T-shirts from shows I saw in the late 90s and the early 00s.

There, in a giant plastic bag, was a whole folded-up past; 100%-cotton, size-XL proof of  once-passionate devotion (not to mention of disposable income) for bands like Wilco, Guided by Voices, and, yes, Dave Matthews Band.

And  in sticking with my pledge to pare down, I knew that if I was going to move them to the new apartment, I’d have to find space for them or actually do something with them.

At first I thought about looking into having one of those memory quilts made. (But something about cuddling up on the couch under an ugly album-cover image by a band I can no longer stand just doesn’t quite go with IKEA decor.)

And, thanks in part to certain reality-television stylists’ sage advice, gone are my days of wearing boxy cotton T-shirts that reach down to my knees, (i.e., a fashion line called “The Alison, 1990-2002″).

But I’ve been saving these shirts for a reason. And now, somewhat painfully, I have to admit what–who–it is.

Chapter 2: Sweater Song

When I was in middle school and heard “Light My Fire” for the first time–and learned that my uncle in Seattle, my mom’s hip brother who I idolized, had been a fan when he was in high school–I was mesmerized.

By seventh grade, I had developed a full-blown obsession with  late-60s and 70s pop counterculture. I’d ask my parents quizzically about why they hadn’t gone to Woodstock. How could they have lived through the Summer of Love without being blissed-out hippies or passionate protesters (rather than, say, a church-going prospective high school teacher and a Navy seaman)?

Still, in my late teens and all through college, when I would search rather desperately for jeans with a flared leg, my mom would lament, “Man, I wish I’d kept my bell-bottoms and disco shoes….Stuff always comes back in style.”

And all of this time, my uncle periodically shipped me cassettes and CDs of non-top 40 music, exposing me to Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Jimi Hendrix, on and on. Stuff that, not to be too dramatic about it, changed my life.

So I guess I’ve always expected that I, too, would someday be a passer-onner of the cool stuff from my own era.

I would never have to regret not having held on to such-and-such. Instead, I could say to the kid whose school was having “90s Grunge Day” for their week of “crazy” Homecoming days,

“Let me grab that hole-y green cardigan out of the attic, hon–you’ll have the best costume in the whole school!”

But as I’ve had to face plastic tubs of sentimental stuff I’ve kept from high school and college–I really do have an old-man sweater that I thought looked Kurt Cobain-ish when I bought it at the Salvation Army circa 1998–I’ve had to ask myself, “Whom, exactly, do I presume will be the recipient of all this ephemera?”

As every news outlet seems to announce on a monthly basis, women at my age are biologically supposed to be having kids by now (at least if they want to have a better chance at healthy ones).

And yet my husband and I–who’ve been married all of two months–happen to have other things on our immediate priority list than bringing a new life into the world (and hence changing both of our lives forever). Things like learning how to bridge our two single lives together. (Or at least finding a place for me to store my socks and underwear.)

Chapter 3: I’ve Finally Decided My Future Lies Beyond the Yellow-Pitted [war]‘drobe

I’ve come to realize that hanging on to stuff for the sake of my own nostalgia–or the sake of someone who might never exist–is actually causing me stress, rather than enjoyment.

The picnic basket I’ve had since seventh grade is stuffed with folded-notebook-paper notes my friends and I passed in junior high. I have all of them. No, really. ALL of them.

I still have every diary I’ve ever kept–and I started keeping a diary at, like, age 9.

Why–when I’d been alive all of a decade–did I feel a need, even back then, to document everything? Why this protective urge to be able to refer back to every lived moment?

It’s like whatever must possess people to carve proof of their existence into bathroom stalls and state-park trail signs: “I was here.”

And I guess I saved my Lollapalooza 1996 shirt because I wanted to prove to my future self what I was truly like at one time, not an edited, more flattering version of myself. (I thought I was so, so cool for getting to go that show–even though it was widely panned as “the year Lollapalooza sold out.”)

But I’ve got to free myself from this potential landslide caused by pieces of the past.

(And let’s say I do hang on to all this stuff for the sake of impressing my nephews? Ten years from now, if I relinquish my T-shirt from the 2001 Radiohead show, this is what I’ll hear: “That’s nice, Auntie, but…didn’t you ever go see Creed?”)

So, for now, (in a moment of strength), I’ve decided I’m going to get rid of as much of my memorabilia (or at least the wearable kind) as possible. Even if the only way I can get myself to do it is to stop to document it first, (as I’ve done below with a set of photos on Flickr).

(Now, don’t even ask me what the hell I’m gonna do with all those diaries.)

 

One of the surprises about being married, so far, has been the fact that I find myself playing more of my dad when it comes to little squabbles about money.

My dad, in my parents’ relationship, was the one who always questioned my mom before she threw anything out–or wanted to buy anything new.

As a kid I always took my mom’s side in these small arguments. (It was hard not to. When the console TV broke in this millennium, Dad wanted her to find another one just like it.)

My mom and I both love to shop. We’re both lured in by bargains and baubles and going to stores for the fun of it.

So when Chris and I have little disagreements about the need (or not) for certain things, I can’t believe how much I remind myself of my dad.

Now that I’ve left a rather comfortable full-time position with great benefits to become a part-part time teacher, I find myself worrying about finances and becoming the more miserly.

Last week when Chris ordered a pie pan and a butter cutter ( I love saying the name of that thing) in preparation for making a Thanksgiving pecan pie, I–instead of saying, “I can’t believe how lucky I am to have found a guy who bakes,”–actually said instead, “Did we really need that? Couldn’t you have just borrowed one of those from your parents (who are also big into baking)?”

When I moved in with my husband last month, I gave away a mattress and box springs from my parental home that was not only handed down to me, but that, when it was, it was already more than two decades old.  (Have I mentioned that my dad is a farmer?)

So, the idea of replacing the queen-sized bed that Chris already owns–a perfectly nice, perfectly balanced between fluffy yet firm, and even perfectly modern and luxurious (i.e., he actually sprang for the memory foam-y kind, whereas the bed I was using had a freaking piece of plywood underneath it to keep it firm)–with a bigger, king-sized one, seems ludicrous to me, nothing but pure waste, typical American excessive-ness.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this bed.

But, with both of us having lived single a long, long time before we moved in together, we’re both used to having more personal space in the bed. (And hogging the covers.)

But more importantly, Chris (unfortunately)  has a bad back, so he’s always in some measure of pain on a daily basis.  So a night spent sleeping uncomfortably means an even more messed-up back the next day. So, every now and then when he wakes up with especially bad back pain, he’ll say, “I need to look into getting a bigger bed.”

I do understand where he’s coming from. But the idea of upsizing still makes me cringe–like we’re those kind of people who, if uncomfortable when trying to squeeze into airplane seats, would more readily sue the airline for obesity discrimination than think of dropping a couple of pounds.

This morning, though, I think I might have been forced to changed my stance.

It was 3:45 a.m., (and I know that for certain because, believe me, I was wide awake after what happened).

I’d been dreaming a weird anxiety dream in which Chris and I were having (for some reason) our second of three consecutive wedding ceremonies, and I was (surprise!) worrying about why we had decided to do three separate ones, because isn’t that a tad excessive, and shouldn’t we maybe have just had one?

Well. In my dream, I’m walking down the aisle for the second time, regretting my choice of having (apparently) decided that we needed one wedding ceremony for some guests, and a second one for another, when suddenly I’m possessed by a piercing pain in my right arm.

I cried out for Chris, and then, simultaneously awoke to the realization that the pain was coming from Chris. I tried to shake out of his spoon-y embrace (sorry, TMI, but it’s important here). “What the–are you awake?!?–ow, stop it! Chris, wake up!”

“Wha–? Oh, oh my God, I’m so sorry!”

“What the hell are you doing?!?” I cried.

“Oh, my God,” he said. “I dreamt I was chasing someone because they stole your cell phone,” he said.

We both started cracking up.

“Jeezus!” I said, rubbing my arm. Were you trying to eat the guy?”

Now, in the daylight, I keep doubling over with laughter out of the blue, every time I think of it–we’re both laying there dead asleep and Chris suddenly takes a huge, deep CHOMP into my upper arm.

I was honestly surprised when I later checked in the mirror and there was (thankfully) no evidence of bruising or broken skin.

But you know how lots of times when you’re dreaming something, like that you’re reaching out to grab a rope, say, and you might actually–but barely–move your arm, and you wake yourself up because you’re lightly gripping the pillow or something?

I can see the possibility of dreaming that you’re biting into something (a cell-phone thief?) and then maybe lightly gumming something next to you, be it person or pillow. But damn. Chris was ready to tear some flesh.

This morning at breakfast, as we were both still laughing and he kept apologizing, I jokingly told him, “We’re gonna end up like that couple on ’20/20.’”

Because, (dork that I am), I totally remember this episode from years and years ago when a guy with a sleep disorder ruefully admitted on camera that he had tried to attack his wife in her sleep, even choking her.

“I drempt I was wrasslin’ a deer,” the poor guy said, wide-eyed.

“You better not try to wrassle me,” I warned.  (I haven’t yet let on that I’m now a bit more open to making a purchase that would allow for a bit more space between us in the marital bed.)

I suppose  now I can truly say that, while our married life appears to be going swimmingly for the most part, it’s also true that–sorry, can’t resist–love bites.

 

Recently I shared with you that I got hitched after many years of single-hood.

And I also told you about how, subsequently, I left my animal-infested rental cabin (in rural, small-town Illinois) to move in with my husband in semi-metropolitan “Quad City” area in Iowa).

Hence, it’s time to share with you some thoughts about crossing the state line and becoming an official Davenportian, as I like to say.

 

(I also like to call Bettendorf [one of the cities in this area] “B’dorfadorf,” in the style of “badonkadonk.” You may call it that as well.)

1. DMV Delight

My transformation became official on my second day here, when–upon realizing I was about to become an illegal driver in two states (my IL sticker set to expire)–I shucked out an arm and a leg and got my vehicle registered in Iowa.

Thankfully, I’ve got an aging Honda. They charge you by year and size of vehicle here. (Yet another reason not to drive a tank.)

 

When I opened the door to the Davenport driver’s facility, I wasn’t upset when I saw how many people were seated in the waiting area. Cool, I thought. Now I can get all those jokes on the sitcoms!

Where I grew up, in rural Illinois, not only did I not have to take a number at the DMV, but, the person at the desk would usually wave me over, call me by my first name and ask me what my mom has been up to lately.

So I have to admit I was almost disappointed when the Iowa DMV workers whipped me through one line to the next and I was in and out in under an hour. No chance to build up cred as someone who has finally lived a “big city” experience.

But I did take away one memorable moment: I discovered that the state of Iowa has some kind of weird dental discrimination.

When it was time to get my new license, as I stood in front of the blue background cloth, the lady manning the camera commanded me to brush my bangs off my forehead. “No problem,” I told her.

“No teeth,” the lady said.

“Huh?”

“You can smile, but you can’t show your teeth,” she said.

“Oh…okay,” I said.

What’s the state of Iowa got against a toothy grin? I don’t get it. But I didn’t want to argue. This lady might have had the power to deny me residency.

So I grinned, weirdly, and now I have a very Kermit-the-Frog face on my ID.

2. All Moody, All The Time

(And no, I’m not talking about my husband discovering what I’m really like now that we live together. Ha!)

I wonder what Elvis Costello could come up with if he were asked to update “Radio, Radio” after spending just one day in Davenport, Iowa in 2011.

Ever since high school, (or, for the past 15 years up until now/ having access to Spotify), I’ve envied my Seattle family members, college friends from Chicago, and others who lived in a place where there were radio stations playing music that was actually recorded in the current year.

As a kid, I had no problem getting access to the tunes I loved, because, first of all, I had no concept that there was anything other than Top 40 radio, and because second, I actually loved what was mainstream and popular, from Whitney and Bobby to Wham! and Belinda Carlisle.

These days, whenever I listen to Top 40 radio, in any location, I hear myself saying things I (of course) swore I’d never say: “Gah, what is this crap? That little Katy Perry is just another flash in the pan, you wait and see.”)

But now that I’ve moved to a place that actually has some population–a place I totally assumed would have at least one decent radio station, if not several–I find myself actually excited when I land on a station that’s playing anything recorded after 1978.

When I run errands or drive to work, and it happens to be a time when I’m not interested in listening to NPR, (i.e., news over, classical music begins), I scan the stations and it goes a little something like this:

 

“I can’t drive fifty-five” (skip) “…I was born on the bayou” (skip) “Today’s Tom Sawyer …” (skip) “…I ain’t no Fortunate Son” (skip) “…hold on to that feel-ay-ee-ay-in’… ‘” (skip) “….please join us in prayer here at Moody Bible Radio–”(skip)…”…I ain’t no senator’s son…” (skip) “…welcome to the Women’s Connection, where today’s focus will be: ‘How can be we work Jesus into our morning carpools?’” (skip)

 

Now, mind you, I love Credence and Journey and Rush. (Sammy Hagar, though, not so much). And I’m fully aware that ClearChannel owns the entire world and the days of varied radio are long over. But why can’t I find at least one station playing something other than classic rock?

Oh wait. I can.

Between every snippet of 70s-era guitar solo, I land upon admonitions to stop sinning and get with God before He smites me down right then and there in the automatic car wash.

The other day in my 5-minute drive between dropping off recyclables and stuff to donate to Goodwill, I got yelled at so vehemently by a guy declaring that life. starts. AT. CONCEPTION, I was starting to feel guilty for something I hadn’t even done.

3. Cross-Town Traffic (Brought to You by Big Brother)

At the risk of making myself sound like a serious hick, I have to admit that I’m still culture shock over the fact that there are two, four, even six of everything here: Hy-Vees, Targets, Wally-Worlds, Paneras, etc. There are two shopping malls, a “north” and a “south.”

And, while I haven’t really patronized any of those too much since I moved here, I have been running around a lot doing errands–partially related to moving/getting settled in, and partially to be a helpful housewifey type (since I’m only partially employed and my husband is double employed). So, whenever I ask my him how to get to some business or facility, I love that I can legitimately use phrases like, “Is that downtown?” Ooh, so urban.

On the other hand, I am so not used to actually having to wait (more than 3 seconds) at stoplights.  Or the fact that, on my drive to and from work, I pass through no fewer than three “photo-enforcement zones,” otherwise known as intersections through which, at any time, I could be videotaped and subsequently mailed a mean-ass letter saying I was going too fast (or interpreted a yellow light as “speed up.”)

My husband, Chris, has already received at least 2 of these evil letters in the mail in the last year or so, complete with a link to a video of himself behind the wheel. (And no, he claims, he was not caught picking his nose.) And a co-worker at my new part-part-time job told me she’d received a few as well, but, hey, “There’s a silver lining. They don’t affect your insurance.”

Well, I’m used to living in a place where the only “stoplight” in the entire county was a blinking red light on a pole.

4. The Final Nail in my Coffin of Nerd-dom

I have always–always–thought that if I lived in a place of any size, I would patronize the local music clubs and go to shows whenever anybody decent was in town.

But, in the weeks since I’ve lived here, I’ve already missed a couple shows of note: a group of Communion folks performing at the club with the weird name, and Paul Simon at the big arena (i Wireless). And the talented singer/songwriter M.Ward will be in town in a couple of days at RIBCO.

Question 1: Am I a drooling fan of any of thee above? No.

Question 2: If any of these acts had come to any of the small towns where I previously lived, would it have been thee biggest moment of the year? YES.

The truth about my new life is that, instead of spending time at rock shows, I’ve been…(tucks head down in shame)… hanging out at the library. Actually, make that libraries.

Did you know that there are places in this country that you can go to and find books and music and movies and that they let you take them home for FREE??? And that some of them even have coffee shops inside?

The linked library system in these quad cities is amazing. I can’t stop checking stuff out. And wondering aloud, “Why did I ever used to buy books, again?”

(Oh, and speaking of the driving situation earlier?? This sign at one of the Davenport libraries was definitely a first for me.)

In Conclusion and In Sum

The verdict, in the big picture, is this: I absolutely love living here so far. So much so that, with frequency, I’ve been shaking my head and going, “What took me so long?”

I have creative interests, so of course I need to live in a place where there are art museums, concerts (I will go, eventually), actual downtowns.

I do wonder, though: As I start to get more and more comfortable in a place where, (as you can kind of see in the background of the library pic linked above), there are cookie-cutter houses popping up everywhere, and where I can hit a Target just by throwing a rock, (but also where the neighbors in our apartment complex are not only strangers, but people who seem to attract the police on a daily basis), will I miss at least some parts of living in a small town?

What if I lose a part of my authentic self by becoming less rural and more suburban?

Mostly, I feel I’ve already gained so much by living here. (And, no, not just weight from better restaurants).

It’s not just the schlepping of so much stuff from one place to another, and the ensuing chaos (although that really, really does suck).

It’s that moving always (this time especially so) creates in me an overwhelming feeling of failure. (Don’t worry. Poop will be mentioned in this post).

I had a full month to get ready for this move.

And I did try to donate several things to the Salvation Army, and to take small loads one-by-one from my place in Illinois to my husband’s in Iowa.

But come move-out day, the process of packing–or, more truthfully, the “process” of “shoving all of my s#$% in its current disorganized state into un-labeled tubs at the very last possible moment”–becomes a forced intervention. It’s been this way each time I’ve moved from one place to the next, even though I swear I’ll do better next time: friends and family who got suckered into helping discover that the boxes they agreed to help load into the truck or van are actually not…um…packed.

I can see now (about two weeks post-move) why I put off packing. It’s because having to physically deal with all of my crap means having to face up to a lifetime’s worth of failure.

In other words, schlepping multiple plastic tubs of stickers, fancy cardstock paper, and glitter glue forces me to admit how many evenings–how many weeks, months, years now–I’ve been telling myself that I’m going to do something constructive while watching TV, not just sitting there eating junk food.

As I boxed it all up this time to give it away, I sighed in defeat.

I am, and will never be, a person who uses glitter glue. I will never make anything with scraps of pretty ribbon. (I will, however, have dropped enough loose popcorn kernels to have planted a field between the sofa cushions.)

And this is not to mention the decades worth of unorganized photos I’ve been meaning to transform into a beautifully chronologized scrapbook of my youth.

As I sat in a circle of shoeboxes stuffed with sentimental crap, I had to admit to myself that it’s just never going to happen. (And so it’s the world’s loss that the Spring 1995 State Pep Band Showcase won’t be preserved for all time after all.)

But, worse than this, dealing with all of my tangible stuff forces me to face another ugly truth:

I’ve got some things in common with those people on that show who live amongst  excrement.

(Although, at least unlike this one poor guy they featured, ["Steven"], the poop is not my own).

Here are three reasons why:

1. I keep useless stuff, like empty glass bottles, because I truly believe I’m going to find use for them someday. (Real Simple.com, you and your “New Uses for Old Stuff” column are nothing but evil, evil enablers).

2. The idea of wasting things–like the perfectly good bottle of Tobasco sauce I threw in the trash this morning at my husband’s insistence (because neither of us like it, but which probably cost a whole $3 when I bought it to use one teardrop of in a recipe)–causes me sincere anxiety.

(Sometimes I try to defend this anxiety by saying it comes from my grandma’s family having been so poor during the Great Depression, they had to live in the chicken coop at one point, [after their home caught fire]. But seriously, that was my grandma, not one of my parents or even me. And it’s an effing bottle of Tobasco sauce. If our own home catches fire one day, Chris and I will not be saved from poverty by holding on to T-shirts from my college days or food products we didn’t use up completely. (, we don’t even have a chicken coop.)

But worst of all, like those people on that television show,

3. I (a person who thinks she is so self-aware, she makes fun of other people for not noticing their own denial), have been guilty of living in denial.

 

 

Here’s a little bit more on that last one.

On the night before my third and final schlepping trip involved in this move, my husband and I were at his parents’ house mooching off their laundry facilities (and cable) when we landed upon an episode of Hoarders (and, perhaps as Chris’s attempt to send me a message, he kept it on that channel).

In this episode, a man had dozens of cats taken from his home–several of them alive but sickly, and several more, it is revealed (after animal-control people raid his home), have been rotting away dead in the ceilings and rafters.

The shrink on the show, noting how blind the guy seemed to have been to his situation, just kind of shrugged.

“This had just become ‘normal’ for him,” she said.

The animal-control people on the show, and the people in the room with me (Chris), announced their disgust (rightfully) with this supposedly-cat-loving man, scolding him for his neglect.

But at least twice, I said out loud, “I feel sorry for the guy.”

But what I didn’t say aloud was that–in at least some small way–I am this guy.

Now, it might be true that when we had moved all my crap earlier that day, it was just regular old dust and shedded cat hair that covered most of my possessions, (as opposed to actual dead cats).

And when I had to give away my kitty to a family friend before the move, I think she (the cat) was in perfectly healthy condition. (“Think,” because I hadn’t taken her to the vet since…ever. Okay, procrastination will be covered in a separate post. Later.)

But, would a healthy person who keeps her home orderly and in control ever have to admit this? :

A couple of years ago, I found a small turd–produced by an unidentified source–on the middle of the floor in my house. And after a few seconds of concern, I scooped it up, threw it in the trash, and then pretended that nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

My brain, at this time, recognized the factual information that something or someone had pooped in my house, and that the thing was not the cat.

Appropriate action(s):

• call Animal Control?
• call a friend or family member to help search the house to locate source of said feces?
• go to store and purchase live trap?

Good news: any of these answers qualify as correct.

And yet.

Reasons appropriate actions were not taken:

• wasn’t sure if the impoverished Illinois county I lived in even had Animal Control.
• family members lived out of town; friends in the area were busy putting kids to bed.
• probably also had graduate paper to write or entire novel to read by next day.
• no local store at which to purchase said trap (nor money with which to purchase it)

Consequences:

• Being greeted unexpectedly–a full day or two later–by a live, mid-sized possum in my living room. At 9 p.m. on a Friday night, when I was sitting on the couch, eating popcorn and watching True Blood.

Imagine the look on my face, (and the noises I made), as I bounced and scampered across the room, alternately trying to get a look at the thing (to make sure it was still there/that I was not hallucinating) and to get the hell away from it.

Imagine the sound of my voice when I called my landlord– and then, when he wasn’t home, my friend Emily, who had to talk me down and try to convince me to throw a laundry basket over the vile thing (which, by this point, was eating out of the cat’s bowl).

(The landlord, eventually, came over with a broom and got the possum outside. He did not, however, do anything to make sure the house was properly protected from future animal intrusions, meaning this would not be the last visit from a woodland creature to my living room.)

The moral of this story is that, thankfully, while I was not actually hoarding possums (oh God, please don’t let that be a future episode on TLC), I can relate to feeling so overwhelmed, and so unable to solve problems, that the problems themselves–ranging from too much clutter, to inertia and stuck-ness and helplessness in the face of being alone–just become the “normal.”

The other moral is that if you find an unidentified turd on your carpeted stairs and you don’t actually do anything about it, it’s probably time to–among other things–let go of the crafting materials you’re not using. (Do you really think Martha Stewart, for one, would live among opossum?)

 

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: I wrote the following post, like another I posted recently, back in September before I got married. So you will get to enjoy knowing that what you’re reading about as “upcoming” has actually happened. Oooo irony!)

Chapter 1:

One is the Loneliest Number… if You’re Over 25 in a Small Town (And Even Kind of Makes You Feel Like You Smell Bad)

I’m the last of all my close friends, and the last by several years, to get hitched. (The last time I was asked to be a bridesmaid, George Bush Junior was in office and I still went “out” on Saturday nights to some place other than the video store.)

For a long time, before I met Chris, being single made me feel like a pariah.

In Sex and the City, being a singleton is sexy. But in rural America, I felt like I’d been cursed with some strange disease–one that some people had heard of, and assured I would eventually get over, (but for which they had no recommendation on getting cured).

When each one of my friends “married off,” (a phrase I’m putting in self-conscious quotes because I hate it, but can’t think of a better way to say it right now), I’m ashamed to admit that my happiness for them was tainted by a serious case of self-pity.

It wasn’t that I wanted to get married, per se. For most of that time I wasn’t even in a relationship, let alone dating (because in the sparsely-populated area where I lived, there was seemingly no one to date. Insert “keeping it in the family” joke about rural people here, I know you want to).

But I just didn’t want to keep reliving the nightmare of K-12 P.E.

In other words, every flip through the Engagements column in my hometown newspaper, every perusal through the Class Notes section of my college alumni magazine, felt like a personal stab, like I was back in the gym and dying a little bit with each team captain’s selection of kids who actually possessed eye-hand coordination (until eventually the coach would have to forcibly put me and one other sad straggler onto a team).

So, all of this is to say, sometimes during all the stress and petty issues involved in wedding planning, I have to stop and take a moment to remind myself how I lucky I am that the emphasis is on “I’m marrying a wonderful person!” rather than “I’m (finally) getting married!”

It’s kind of sad that I got to a point in my twenties where I honestly believed this would never happen.

In fact, I probably would never have met Chris if it weren’t for the fact that, when I was already into my 30s, I started hanging around with a group of much younger people: a group of early-to-mid-twenty-somethings with whom I was enrolled in a graduate program in English (them full-time, me a “townie” taking classes at night after work).

They didn’t introduce me to my future husband, though–at least not in a direct way. There were maybe a total of two guys who would hang around, and, (in addition to the fact that they both had girlfriends “back home”), I felt a bit maternal toward them, knowing that I’d once babysat kids born in the same year as them.

But I benefited just from being around people whose status in life was a bit more open-ended. In other words, when two of my girlfriends in this group would get emails from guys on an online dating site, their responses were more “Hmm, should I click on this guy?” than  “If I don’t click on this guy, am I wasting my last possible chance at love and maybe marriage and of not dying alone with my cat?”

Being around them made me feel less pariah and more Cool Older Chick Who Can Drive Us Around Campus in Her Car.

So I went from obsessing about the self-imposed SINGLE sign around my neck to being somewhat spunky about my single status–or at least thinking a little more liberally. So I get online myself, with the goal of doing nothing more serious than getting a coffee with some local guy.

(Instead, I ended up emailing and then talking on the phone with, and then meeting face-to-face, a guy who treated me like a best friend, and three years later we’re getting married.

But he still lives two hours away in a small-ish city. So my sad assessment of the rural dating pool–or puddle, if you will–remains unchanged.)

Chapter 2:

Old-y but Good-y

Perhaps it’s obvious for me to point out that wedding traditions and expectations–and the bridal mega-industry–are geared toward much younger women.

When one of my childhood friends got married, we partied so hard at her bachelorette party that I was hungover for what seemed like a week afterward.

Yet when she contacted me recently about hosting a bachelorette event for me, she pointed out that two of the four women on the guest list (including her) are breastfeeding, so they may not be able to stay the night out of town, let alone tie one on.

So I will not sugarcoat it: the truth is, it’s more than a little weird to just be getting married at an age when some of my closest friends have not only given birth multiple times, but have already made reproduction-related decisions involving outpatient surgeries.

I know plenty of people who felt certain in their love when they married in their early 20s.

(One of my closest friends is married to her high school sweetheart, and they are one of my favorite couples. Sometimes when I’m having dinner with them in their farmhouse with their three kids, I have to remind myself that they got together when we still had a curfew.)

But what I’ve had to stop and soak up is the wonderful feeling of certainty, as a bride on the “other side,” i.e., past 30), that I’ve found the right person to be my partner.

I can say for sure, because I have the benefit of hindsight, that if I had gotten married at 24 instead of 34, I would have been taking the biggest step in my life but doing so from what was–for me–a less-than-healthy time, emotionally and mentally.

Having said that, I won’t deny the fact that things like being “given away” by my parents at the beginning of the ceremony have given me pause. Participating as a grown woman in a tradition designed to feel very “Daddy’s little girl”  seems like trying to stuff myself into a little pink tutu.

There’s definitely some strangeness of entering into marriage at an age when I could or (“should” by some folks’ standards) have a daughter getting married not too far into the future.

But at the same time it’s cool to think about the fact one of my close friends’ little girl–a third-grader already–has known me all of her life and will remember being at my wedding.

I like knowing that, because Chris and I are a little older, our friends’ kids–ranging from infants to one high schooler–will be part of the day, and that instead of throwing a bouquet at them, I’ll be tossing them candy.

Chapter 3/Conclusion:

The One and Only Perk of Aging is Giving Less and Less of a F#$% About What Other People Think

Aside from being mature and centered enough to know that I’m marrying the right person, the other big benefit of being an older bride is in knowing that all the little details of the wedding planning–details I watched friends fret so much over–aren’t going to change the way people already see me, (or cause the world to end, for that matter).

I want the event to seem thoughtfully and creatively planned, and I desperately want people to have a good time.

But when it comes to things like not wearing a veil, or not spending money on gold-embossed monogrammed napkins ,(or, um…not getting married in a church), I’ve reached an age where I know that if people don’t like the choices I’ve made, there’s nothing I can do about it. And furthermore, if they’re the type of people to disapprove of our somewhat offbeat wedding, then they weren’t invited and can go jump in a lake (but not the one where we’re getting hitched).

–

EDITOR’S NOTE: I wrote the following post at some point several weeks before Chris and I were married in September, but for some reason I never posted it. Probably because I was scared of being cocky and therefor jinxing myself and then, like, dying of shame because I offended so many guests with my non-traditional wedding choices. I will provide another update–an answer to the question posed in this post, i.e., can I stay true to myself as the website offbeatbride.com has been so helpfully encouraging me to do?–at the bottom. Hint: I don’t die.

This week I’ve been having a bit of anxiety about the fact that my well-meaning family members are hoping to throw a shower for me.

While perhaps for many women this would be a source of excitement, for me it’s actually a bit dread-inducing. (Because I, myself, have done nothing but bemoan every single such “party” I’ve ever been invited to. Hypocrite much?)

I’ve tried making some requests to my hostess, and I do appreciate that she wants to throw a party in my honor, but it looks like we’ll be going super traditional (i.e. punch, parlor games, and present-opening. Whee.). I’m trying not to seem ungrateful.

To get through it, perhaps I will remind myself that, even if I’m going to be total hypocritical by having a shower thrown for me, I’ve at least stayed pretty true to my guns for many other decisions involved in the wedding-planning process (a feat that is much harder than it sounds. There’s a bajillion-dollar industry built around bridal peer pressure).

And so, behold, several laws (of wedding tradition) that I have, like Judas Priest, been breakin’:

The Insistence that Tens of Thousands of Dollars Must Be Spent and That the Bride Must Be a Cinderella

(Actual marketing copy from one of the umpteen pamphlets I received from David’s Bridal. Weird use of CAPS are theirs, not mine):

 

“love your VEIL. It’s as important as your gown, framing your look and defining your style.” [Choice A: a piece of lacy material for $200].) “IMAGINE THE MOMENT all eyes are on you [.]The details are everything when you’re a bride…. The veil makes the bride.”

 

(Oops. I’m not wearing one. Guess I’m not “made”!)

The Idea that Entire Forests Must Be Killed for the Sake of Elegance

Actual invitation prices advertised by DB: $410.95 for a box of 100. Amount Chris and I paid for our postcard-style invites (which we used ‘cuz we put most of the info on the web site we designed ourselves) : <$30.00

The Acting-as-if-I’m-a-Little-Girl Crap, and the As-If-There-is-No-Groom Ridiculousness:

In other words, we refused to use this kind of wording on the announcements/invites/programs/:

 

“Mr. and Mrs. [bride's parents] request the honour of your presence at the marriage of their daughter…”

 

The parents are saying it because the bride can’t speak for herself? And the groom doesn’t really want you there?

Look. I do worry a little bit that my parents will see this as a small slight since we’re introducing/inviting in our own words.

I very much want to honor my parents, and to acknowledge their major financial and emotional support for our big day. But seriously? I’m practically middle aged. Having my parents “announce” this event makes me feel like I’m still living at home and they’re still doing my laundry (and I’m hiding cigarettes from them).

NOTE/UPDATE:

We decided to skip best man/matron of honor speeches and just take the mic ourselves to publicly thank the P’s.

I was going to write more about other “laws” we were breaking–like skipping the hideous Let’s- Single-Out-the-Last-Remaining-Single-Friends-We-Have, and-Who-BTW-Are-”Single”-Because They’re-Newly-Divorced, Bouquet Toss–and about how I hoped they would prove to not matter in the end, but I guess I ran out of steam. (Wedding planning will do that to you.)

But the great news is, people seemed to have a good time and appreciate the non-traditional choices we made (or, at the very least, knew us well enough to understand that we’re not uber traditional anyway). If they thought our choice of venue was tacky (complete with its taxidermied deer and campground-style bathroom facilities), they were kind enough to keep it to themselves).

We had music by the Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys in the processional, we tossed candy to kids instead of bouquets to grown women, we hula-hooped, we served ice cream cake instead of wedding cake. And, I’m extremely happy and relieved to report this: We had fun. Chris actually danced.

I broke more wedding traditions than I kept, and I can honestly say I had the time of my life. Literally and truly. (I planned it specifically so that the DJ played that song as the last one of the night.)

• Complained about being prompted to buy something off of the couples’ registry, because I “want[ed] to give them something ‘creative’” or “something they will actually like”
• Gave shitty shower gifts because I resented being invited
• Whined about getting invited to “bachelorette” parties
• Thought/ said aloud, “Jeeze, [bride's name] is so wrapped up in all the silly little wedding-planning details, it’s like she seems more focused on those than on actually getting married”
• Payed cash for a drink at the bar, when there was free keg beer provided
• Actually said to the bride and/or groom’s face, upon being asked why I was paying for drinks, “Um…I don’t drink keg beer”
• RSVPd late
• RSVPd and then changed my answer
• did not RSVP at all
• did not RSVP at all (but then actually showed up at wedding[!]) (This was only once, but still.)

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1

Lately, I’ve found myself counting syllables. Lying in bed at night, I’ll press my fingers down ever so lightly on an invisible surface, not unlike I did in second grade the night before my piano recital.  “Dum-da-dum/da-dum-da-dum-dumdum,” you might catch me  sounding-out to myself these days. “I guess that’s not too horrible.”

I tap out my possible new name: “Alison McGaughey-Norton.” Eight syllables. It’s not that bad. It’s not like I’m marrying a Stephanopoulos or a Boutros-Ghalli.

Still, I scan my brain for examples of women I know who don’t “just” have hyphenated last names, but who’ve also got at least one clunker in there.  (Surely Smith-Jones types didn’t have to think too hard about this decision, right?)

“Doc/tor Can/dace Car/dell/i/ni – Mar/ti/nez*,” I count out, landing upon the name of a woman who taught at a school where I once worked. Nine syllables. I feel the tiniest flutter of smug satisfaction knowing that mine would be a whole beat less. Then I move on to my little checklist:

Did I ever heard anyone mock Dr. Candace Cardellini-Martinez for hyphenating, when she clearly knew she’d have a long-ass name?

Did I ever hear anyone call her a feminazi or pretentious granola hippie?

No.

So, okay. Score one for “Maybe.”

But still. I barely knew this woman, and I can easily recall her name because it drew attention to itself.

Do I sincerely want to add more syllables onto my already cumbersome, vowel-laden, phonetically incorrect last name? (It should technically rhyme with “McLaugh-y,” but somehow we got a long A in there, McGay-hee.)

My fiance and I are getting married this fall. Recently, when I called a hotel to book a block of rooms for our out-of-town guests, I had to spell out my current name to the receptionist. I’m used to doling out each letter slowly and with extra articulation, but it rarely helps.

“M, c—wait, what is it?” the lady said.

In moments like these, I worry that people will think I’m nuts for not wanting to just take “Norton” and clean out that phonetic clutter. That once they see I’ve insisted on keeping “McGaughey” around, certain relatives or others might judge me for being high maintenance or egotistical somehow.

And then I try to practice giving them an explanation, and I find myself thinking, “Wait, why am I doing this, again?”

Chapter 2

My childhood self would want to kill me right now for even thinking about this possibility.

In kindergarten, a little red-headed boy named Mikey used to skip down the hall during bathroom break calling out “McGay-hee-hoooo,” his voice bouncing off the cavernous walls of the old school building’s basement, where the kindergartners dwelled. As I waited my turn in the pink Raggedy Ann bathroom, I could hear the boys at the opposite end in the blue Raggedy Andy-painted version, answering Mikey”s call with their own chorus of “hee-hoooo”s.

By third grade, this version of other kids having fun with my name would seem innocent–nostalgic, even.

Our class had inherited a new member, a tough-looking kid named Zeke who’d been held back the previous year. (I mention this because, in our tiny town, there were almost never “new” kids. My core classmate group remained more or less unchanged from preschool to the day we graduated high school.)

By the end of September  it was clear that Zeke’s thing was coming up for a nickname for nearly everyone in the class, some mean and others more innocuous. The heaviest girl in our grade was Donut. The kid whose older brother was already becoming a star on the JV high school football team was Tackle Junior. My friend Dorrie, who one day during art class revealed (via stencil) that her full first name was actually Dorothy, became Toto. (Later, in high school, Toto Tits.)

And one day, at the drinking fountain, I received mine: “gayades.” Huh? I didn’t even realize, at first, that Zeke was addressing me, but after awhile I realized he hollered it every time he brushed past me at the drinking fountain.

One day at recess, my classmate Gretchen stormed back into the building in tears as a result of Zeke’s name-calling.(Hers: Oscar, for Oscar the “Gretch.”) I followed her inside and found her in the bathroom, angrily wiping away tears. “I hate him,” she seethed.

“Don’t feel bad,” I said. “He’s so sure he has to make fun of everyone, he made up a name for me that doesn’t even mean anything.”

Gretchen looked down her glasses at me. “Yes it does,” she hissed. “‘Muh-gay-hee’?” she sounded out slowly, like she was trying to get me to understand that C-A-T spelled “cat.”  She rolled her eyes when I didn’t respond. “Gay?” she said. “And the ades disease? Duh.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I knew that.”

(Sometimes, I wish I could remember the discussion at the dinner table when I surely asked my parents what both “gay” and “ades” meant.)

A few years later, in sixth grade, I started getting attention in the classroom for something that had nothing to do with my last name.

The social studies teacher, Mr. Kestler, had a habit–in a kind of reverse of Zeke’s–of giving everyone in the class attention some kind of role or nickname that linked them to a historical character time period.

That year, when we were talking about kings with their harems, I got riled up one day and made some grand, passionate statement (after raising my hand, of course) about how women should be treated just like men.

Maybe it was just that one story that set me off. Maybe I was simply born with an inherent sense of equity. (Or, more likely, I knew that this young, popular male teacher would make a point to call on me and rib me a little bit if there was something in our textbook about women not having rights, and I just wanted the attention.)

Whatever the case, I would have forgotten entirely about this little role as budding feminist–this small sign that double standards stuck out to me, even as a kid–if it weren’t for a piece of tangible proof that I unearthed many years later.

One summer when I was home from college, I unearthed in my bedroom closet a bumper sticker–given to me by Dorrie during our punch-and-cookie party on the day before Christmas break—that read “A woman’s place is in the house—and in the Senate.”

Chapter 3

I didn’t meet Chris until I was 31 years old, and we are getting married next months after being together three years, which means I’ll be getting married at age 34.  Which in itself isn’t all that strange, but by which point my sister, all of my best friends from childhood and college–and even several girls back home that I had babysat–became married women.

Now that I’m getting married 10 or more years later, I find myself dealing with questions and decisions that, while I know my friends faced them as well and we discussed them, I wished I’d recorded and could replay.  With the caterer’s brochure in one hand and my computer’s calculator pulled up on the screen, I ask Emily and Jane how many people they each invited vs. how many actually showed up, I hear, “Let’s see…I don’t even really remember…did we invite 200?”

I do remember–barely–that when my friend Susan, and later Jane–got married and didn’t change their last names, they expressed a few anxieties about offending future mothers-in-law. I think I remember hearing that they each fielded questions about answering other peoples’ seemingly- innocuous questions like “But what about when you have kids?”

But what I’m remembering a little too clearly now is that during these discussions, I’d wave my hand and say, assuredly, “It’s your choice. It’s not about anyone else. If you don’t feel like you should have to do it, then don’t.”

In giving them these pep talks, it started to dawn on me that, while I’d never given it a lot of thought, there had been something nebulous forming inside me–that seeing two of my best friends make the choice to keep their “maiden” names was a confirmation of what I wanted for myself, when and if I ever found someone (and the longer I went through my 20s and into my early 30s, it started to seem like a moot point).

So it never occurred to me that I was making the decision from safely solitary perch.

One day not long after we were first engaged, we were playing the Wii when my future husband suddenly sounded out, “Alison Norton.” He repeated it again, and landing upon those two repeating “nn“s at the ends, offered, “You could go by Ali. Ali Norton. That sounds cute.”

I froze.

It had never occurred to me, in our two-plus years together, that he would assume I’d take his last name.

Worse, when I told him I’d always planned on keeping my own last name, I was shocked that this news seemed to bother him.

“Why wouldn’t you want to take my name?” he said, seeming a bit wounded. “Doesn’t it sort of seem like, in a way, that you’re telling the world you’re only halfway into the marriage?”

Now, before I go any further, allow me to explain some reasoning for being shocked.

First, this is the same guy who, when he proposed, presented me with a specially-ordered fortune cookie with a personalized proposal inside–and called my parents to make sure they were there to witness the moment–but did not present engagement ring. He had started a travel account for an international honeymoon trip, he explained during the proposal, and I was ecstatic–not only to have found someone I loved so much, but also that he knew me so well that he assumed correctly I would rather not wear an expensive bauble.

I should also point out that, on only our second date, I managed to not only not offend, but connect with, this man on such fun and date-friendly topics as abortion, religion, and Sarah Palin (all during a game of darts in a bar).

And, Chris is a guy who worries so little about standing on ceremony and other peoples’ expectations that, though he works in a professional setting, he wears flip-flops and t-shirts to work every day of the week, (including the one that shows a cartoon bar of soap saying “Rub me on your butt!”)

So, perhaps needless to say, his displeasure at my desire to go the somewhat non-traditional route was not entirely in keeping with his personality and values.

“If you were worried that I’m telling the world I’m not committed to the marriage,” I tried, “then why doesn’t it bother you that I don’t have an engagement ring?”

Chris considered this thoughtfully. But still, his resolve on the issue surprised me. “It’s just… I don’t know. When I hear of women who do that, I think, ‘Well, they’re just keeping their own name in case they end up getting divorced. It’ll be easier for them.’”

I was stunned. If this thoughtful, otherwise-progressive guy saw it this way, could other people out there actually think think that way, too?

I tried several counter-arguments to the “not-all-the-way committed” thing, like the fact that my feminist aunt has been married to my uncle for more than 40 years, and their child seems to have grown up entirely unscathed by having a last name that matched her father’s but not her mothers.

I try pointing out how much he likes Susan and Jane, and how healthy their marriages seem and how little their last names even matter.

And, most importantly, I try reminding him how much I absolutely adore him, how my time with him has been the happiest and healthiest in my life, and how utterly and deeply I know that I never want our time together to end.

To all of this, he listens, considers, and then thoughtfully replies, with a small shake of his head, “I see where you’re coming from. But…I don’t know. I still just don’t like it.”

So, for almost all of our long engagement, we’ve been agreeing to disagree, and/or avoiding the topic altogether. But there’s only a little bit of time left to decide.

Chapter 4

The funny thing is, as I’ve tried to explain to him why keeping my last name is so important to me, I’ve had to ask myself why I’m not relenting, and I’ve had a surprisingly hard time articulating my beliefs to myself, let alone to him.

I want to provide some concrete reason, some specific moment that “caused” me to be a feminist. I try to define what that troublesome word even means to me. Ironically, I’ve discovered that one of the parts of the definition to me has always been this very thing–that when a woman gets married, she’s supposed to give up a big part of her identity, but the man is not. That a woman is “given away” like a piece of property and is expected to wear white. That all the details that were supposed to  enthrall me with Cinderalla-ish dreams as a little girl have honestly always made me prickly.

But somehow, trying to make these arguments as an adult woman (not to mention one getting married later on in life than most) feels akin to sticking my fingers in my ears and saying, “nyah, nyah, I’m not changing my name ‘less you have to do it, too!”

So, setting my nebulous definitions of feminism aside, I try to pinpoint when it was, exactly, that family history started to matter to me.

Was it when I started out as a newspaper reporter and had to type up obituaries, and the concept of lineage started to take on a weird importance (as I tried to imagine the typist of my own obit however many years from now)? That, since there are hardly any males amongst my small rank of cousins, the McGaughey name will disappear from the tree?

But just as I work up the courage to say I’m sticking with the name-keeping decision I made when I was single, I ask myself, if things like legacy and future family members studying their genealogy are important to me, then why am I nearly definite that I don’t want to carry, (let alone raise through the torture of teenage years), children? (And so excited to have met a man who feels the same way?)

It’s hard to argue that I want to keep the history of the McGaughey name alive, when there’s no one coming after me to care about that choice. (And wouldn’t the kid probably do just as little Mikey had? “McGay-hee, that’s a funny name! Muh-gay-hee-hooo!”)

I’ve even tried arguing that I’m proud of my Scotch-Irish and German roots, and in a way this is true. But what is so ethnic about me that would be lost if I take another name—especially since the most Irish/Scottish/German thing I know about myself is that I’m Lutheran by heritage and that I sunburn easily?

Finally, when my fiance and I are eating dinner and the last-name thing comes up, I mumble something like, “I’ve always worked and written with this last name. It’s my professional identity.” (And though that is true, the most public writing I’ve done has been for the local newspaper, or hitting “publish” on this blog.)

So the best I can come up with is, “I don’t know. I’ve just always figured I’d keep my last name. So…uh, have you gotten in touch with your best man about his tie yet?”

One day, after thinking about how otherwise reasonable my fiance is on everything else, and how dearly and gently he treats me and our relationship, I decided to offer a compromise.

“I could hyphenate,” I said. “If it really bothers you that much to see me keep my own last name, I don’t want it to become a sticking point. I don’t want you to have to cringe every time you hear it.”

Of course, in my next breath, I said, “But I’m not gonna change it, either, and be resentful every time I have to say my own name. I just can’t turn into an entirely different person. It’s just… it would feel too weird. Alison Norton.”

So I proposed the hyphenate.

And Chris seemed pleased.

“That would be a good compromise,” he said.

And I felt proud of myself for doing this new adult thing, this healthy compromising, that I’ve never had to do before.

But almost immediately after that conversation, I wondered if I had made a mistake.

Chapter 5

As I lie in bed sounding out syllables, it’s more than just subjecting myself, and others, to having to say and spell out that long of a name, that has me worried.

Really, it’s this: do I want to tell the world–especially my best friends who I so championed on their choice to keep their last names (and to say nothing of my sixth grade classmates who might remember my role as little Hillary Clinton)–that I’m such weakling, I “flip-flopped” on my own beliefs and added my husband’s last name?

Do I want that little hyphen to be a punctuational salute for 1950s-era standing by my man?

For right now, I’m trying to tell myself to stop caring about that “telling the world” part. It’s really not any of “the world’s” business, right? (And doesn’t the world have more important stuff to worry about, anyway?)

I want to stay true to myself.

But I also need to learn how to do that as part of a happy, healthy relationship. Thankfully, that’s a good problem to have.

And thankfully, one of the perks of being an adult is that whatever I choose–whether I hyphenate or stick to my last name standing on its own–I won’t be stuck in the social realm of school. If anyone’s going to make fun of  (or disapprove of) my name, they’ll thankfully do it behind my back. And even if I find out, I’ll be grown up enough to not really care. (Though, hopefully, they’ll leave gay people and AIDS patients out of it.)

 

*some names changed to protect the innocent and/or guilty.