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If/When you get married, will you take your spouse's last name? Why or why not?
I'm just curious. Edited to add my reasons for asking: I've been following this thread on taking last names. I quit reading the comments a while ago. Anyway if you're wondering, I will not be taking Mark's last name, partially for feminist reasons but mostly because I'm lazy and I don't want to put in the paperwork. Mark does have a really unusual last name - it's not very common in the Arab language, and chances are, if you meet someone with his last name, they're probably one of his cousins. (It's probably not even an Arabic last name. He can trace his ancestry on his dad's side back to the Crusades, to some French dude who decided he liked the desert and built a castle there.)
I think about it intermittently. The very first time it came up was when we were about a year or two into dating, and we were about to go to someone's wedding. Then he informed me that "X isn't taking Y's name. Can you believe that?" And I replied, "What's so shocking about that? Lots of people do that now." It was funny because it was an eye-opening moment - we'd both made these huge assumptions without even considering that maybe the other person had other plans.
I asked him how he felt about it later and said, "I know you'll do what you want to do." ^_^
I feel much better today, although I was seriously out of it at work today. This nice older Japanese temp came by and gave me some herbal drops to put in my water. It smelled like my mom's Tiger Balm ointment, and tasted awful. I tried to wash the aftertaste out with several Altoids mints, and it still didn't go away. However, it did perk me right up, so I guess it worked.
Huh - about an hour ago, I submitted an anonymous comment to this site, asking if he meant "flair" instead of "flare". Now I see that my comment has not been posted, but his post has been corrected. Hmm...oh well, it's not like I registered or anything.
I just finished Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. It's simultaneously hilarious and depressing in the same way that the Daily Show is. I was thinking about how forgetful we are about our history, and how all the accomplishments and messages of our heroes before us get garbled and sentimentalized into some sappy generic message, and how depressing that was. Vowell nailed my thoughts exactly when at one point she mentions Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s last speech about probably not making it into the Promised Land with us, but no one ever remembers the part where he urges people to boycott the Coca-Cola Company for their unfair hiring practices.
And dude, the Spanish-American War! I so do not remember learning about that at all. I vaguely remember learning that the U.S. controlled the Philippines at one point, but not what led up to it or anything.
Sarah Vowell is my kind of nerd, because she makes obscure connections and is full of the most random, trivial facts, like the fact that Oneida had its origins as a free-love commune. And you thought they just made some nice dishes!
I'm just curious. Edited to add my reasons for asking: I've been following this thread on taking last names. I quit reading the comments a while ago. Anyway if you're wondering, I will not be taking Mark's last name, partially for feminist reasons but mostly because I'm lazy and I don't want to put in the paperwork. Mark does have a really unusual last name - it's not very common in the Arab language, and chances are, if you meet someone with his last name, they're probably one of his cousins. (It's probably not even an Arabic last name. He can trace his ancestry on his dad's side back to the Crusades, to some French dude who decided he liked the desert and built a castle there.)
I think about it intermittently. The very first time it came up was when we were about a year or two into dating, and we were about to go to someone's wedding. Then he informed me that "X isn't taking Y's name. Can you believe that?" And I replied, "What's so shocking about that? Lots of people do that now." It was funny because it was an eye-opening moment - we'd both made these huge assumptions without even considering that maybe the other person had other plans.
I asked him how he felt about it later and said, "I know you'll do what you want to do." ^_^
I feel much better today, although I was seriously out of it at work today. This nice older Japanese temp came by and gave me some herbal drops to put in my water. It smelled like my mom's Tiger Balm ointment, and tasted awful. I tried to wash the aftertaste out with several Altoids mints, and it still didn't go away. However, it did perk me right up, so I guess it worked.
Huh - about an hour ago, I submitted an anonymous comment to this site, asking if he meant "flair" instead of "flare". Now I see that my comment has not been posted, but his post has been corrected. Hmm...oh well, it's not like I registered or anything.
I just finished Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. It's simultaneously hilarious and depressing in the same way that the Daily Show is. I was thinking about how forgetful we are about our history, and how all the accomplishments and messages of our heroes before us get garbled and sentimentalized into some sappy generic message, and how depressing that was. Vowell nailed my thoughts exactly when at one point she mentions Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s last speech about probably not making it into the Promised Land with us, but no one ever remembers the part where he urges people to boycott the Coca-Cola Company for their unfair hiring practices.
And dude, the Spanish-American War! I so do not remember learning about that at all. I vaguely remember learning that the U.S. controlled the Philippines at one point, but not what led up to it or anything.
Sarah Vowell is my kind of nerd, because she makes obscure connections and is full of the most random, trivial facts, like the fact that Oneida had its origins as a free-love commune. And you thought they just made some nice dishes!
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