This is gonna be a long week.

There was this one girl who told me the other week (on a Thursday) that every day that week she'd thought it was a Monday. Alas, I think I'll be doing the other version of that, where I keep thinking I'm a day ahead of where I really am because I so want it to be the weekend. Monday morning felt like I'd been there for days instead of just starting. Today I woke up thinking it was Wednesday and trying to figure out when Hill and I were going to go to WalMart that night.

I do have some rocking good news today! I got an e-mail for a job interview! For the full-time position I actually want! (in advising) Monday morning! Yeehaw! Happy dance time! And amazingly quick response time too. Maybe Elph's right about it all working out after all. Things do seem to be looking up in that direction the longer things go on, anyway. Time to practice up on answering interview questions and figuring out an interview outfit and all that jazz again, and I'd better move on it before the weekend.

I don't know who's going to be coming to who this weekend or not- Dave's really sick. And wouldn't you know it that (a) the insurance papers still haven't come in yet (who wants to bet $ that someone forgot to send them in?), and (b) his boss made him work an extra few hours yesterday because someone else (who'd been working there a year- I guess by then it's okay to be sick) called in sick? Honestly, that just pisses me off. It's not like he can get a doctor's note like they require (if you haven't been there a year, I guess) when the papers haven't come in yet, not to mention he may be infecting all the customers. I told him he'd better not introduce me to his boss for fear of what I might say.

Adding to the fun, his psycho ex is back in town and called him three times yesterday wanting attention. He didn't answer the phone, she only left one message, he never called back. I normally am a stickler for returning calls, but in this case even I think he shouldn't.

(Anyone else read the words "psycho ex" and have that song from the Psycho Dad show on Married With Children come into their heads? Um, guess it's just me, then.)

Anyway, he was saying he told his mom to tell the ex ANYTHING to get rid of her if she showed up at the house- that he's dead, etc. I said "Yeah, or that you eloped." Then he said that he might have me leave the voice mail message on his phone when he's here this weekend to the extent of "Hi, this is Mrs. Dave'sLastName, if you'd like to leave a message for my husband, talk at the beep." Except his mother would have a heart attack when she called and heard that- "YOU DID WHAT?" So hopefully he won't actually want to do that one (yet, anyway).

The whole Mrs. Hisname thing just weirds me out. I was reading a site online where this woman's mother sent her something to Mrs. Hisfirstname Hislastname, and she was totally flattered and happy to see that. I, on the other hand, would feel weird as hell. It just sounds so much like I'm his property to me (and let's face it, in historical terms that's exactly what it meant) and like I don't exist any more. And I REALLY don't want to be thinking this every time someone has to address me by name- especially when mine is left out of the equation entirely.

I told him before we got engaged when we were talking about something else that I had no intention of changing my name, and I think he's forgotten that. Or is caught up in the romance of passing on the name or us having the same one or something, anyway, because occasionally he makes a remark like that. I haven't been able to get a word out of my mouth when he's said this on occasion, and I don't know what to say if it turns out he really wants me to. I've got my own identity issues with this. I honestly have no idea how a typical guy feels about the issue at all. I can't imagine coming from a mental place where you assume the woman will take your name and how proud you are that they're a part of you publicly now. Okay, I get the proud publicly bit, but I don't get how the name ties into that. Other than, well, property issues again and bragging rights.

Like every other preteenage girl (and yes, sometimes as a teenage one), I did do the thing of trying out my first name with the guy's last name several times during my er, career. I seemed to get crushes on guys with short, plain last names, so Jennifer Theirlastname always sounded good but very generic. Of course, there's going to be 100 girls with THAT name, you know? This may be where my whole generic name fear came in. Bad enough there's over 30 Jennifer Mylastname's on the Internet, but try looking for Jennifer Genericname and see how many you find... Admittedly, this isn't the case with Dave's equally long and complicated last name- apparently he's related to everyone with that name, whereas I'm not related to almost everyone with mine. But it'd still be a big switcheroo, and the names are just too long to do a hyphenate thing like I might have done had he had a short one.

There is the odd social thing of being your maiden name at work/professionally and using his name "socially" (whatever the hell that means), though that's always sounded confusing to me. Maybe all that means is that you no longer try to protest every time his relatives write Mr. and Mrs. Hislastname on all the Christmas cards. Once upon a time, I seriously considered going by my middle name instead of my first. What changed my mind on the idea was that I had a friend at the time who didn't like her first name and when she started at my school, decided to go by her middle. Those who hadn't known her before called her by the middle name, but her family, boyfriend, and everyone at her old school still called her by her first. She eventually gave up trying to get people to change and went back to the first name. My family's just as bad, still calling me "Jennie" after I got sick of it in first grade. I learned years ago that people will call you what they want to call you, and your opinion on the matter be damned. At this point, I let all "Jennie" or "Jen-Jen" or any other weirdass name someone gives me slide, as it's too much work on my part and I know what I say doesn't matter. I imagine it'll be the same with my last name. Those that want to call me by the original will and those who won't, won't. If I'm smart about it, I'll keep my mouth shut and not start constant useless fights about telling people what to call me. Though in all honesty, it's tempting.

It's not that I don't get the niceties of having the same last name- less confusion with organizations and whatnot. I just don't think you have to have the same name in order to be a "family."

Why does the burden of change always have to be on the girl? Still? For everything? Men keep their names, keep most of their ideas about themselves, keep mostly the same impressions about their personalities (though there is the whole "whipped husband" thing), but women are expected to do some miraculuous transformation upon "I do" into the same kind of creature as every other married woman around.

Truth be told, even being a "Mrs." (regardless of whatever last name I have) weirds me out. It sounds so damn old. A Mrs. spends her Saturdays cleaning the house like a good little wife, she doesn't lounge around watching TV. A Mrs. cares deeply about her china. A Mrs. doesn't run around in short tight dresses, even in the privacy of her own bedroom. A Mrs. is stable and steady and respectable and holds dinner parties instead of charbroiling dessert. It's the image of a Mrs. that disturbs me. When compared to a Ms., who's mysterious and nonspecific and can do anything, being Mrs. just sounds like no fun. I look around at people who are delighted to adopt the title and go "But... but... I don't get it!"

There are so many damn labels for females! I loved Jan's entry the other day about the war between the SAHM's vs. the WAHM's vs. the WOHM's. Why can't we all just get along instead of getting into arguments about how if you're not a certain way, you suck?

In all reality, it's about the image of the words. I got brought up by fairly traditional parents. They're not the kind to demand I get married and have babies and stay at home forever by any means, but the dominating image of adult femininity on both sides of the family is (a) being married, (b) being a lady who does not run through puddles and keeps her legs crossed, and (c) the woman takes care of all household items, except on rare occasion when the man may deign to help in the kitchen or something. When I was talking to that guy at WEF the other day, he was saying how he'd had hippie parents who let him do whatever, and I was so jealous of that. I would have loved to have been raised without every female stereotype being embedded in my head the way it's been. To the point where I feel like a big failure as a woman because I don't care about and screw up the stuff women are "supposed" to care about.

It's not that I don't want to get married, mind you. I actually do, I want us to be united in that way. I'm just severely not thrilled at all the assumed cultural baggage (which just doesn't fit with my personality) that comes along with taking the plunge being attached to ME forevermore. Big ugh to that. And times like that are when I wish I'd been born a guy.

I'd love to be one of those unconventional cool married folks. I'm just not sure, given the baggage, if it can actually be done, you know?

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