who is this person and why am i getting her mail?
i have to admit - the name change is a little surreal so far. erik and i have been addressing each other as "husband" and "wife," but it feels like we're joking, like we're pretending.

the last day of our honeymoon, the massage therapist (yay) asked for "Julia Evans," from the doorway of the spa room, which made me smile. i think it was the first time i'd been addressed that way outside of the joking, pretending friends being playful at the wedding reception.

later that day, i was by myself for a moment. somebody asked me if i needed anything, and i responded with a simple, effortless, "i'm just waiting for my husband to check us out."

those instances were in new places. i had never been to the grand tetons before. i had never met that massage therapist before. i had never sat in that lobby before. now, i'm back at work and struggling to change over to be another person in the same swivvle chair i've always sat in, surrounded by the same desk clutter, the same people, the same emails. it just all has a different name on it, as if some other julia came in here and took over my life while i was on vacation. that bitch!

i thought that going by all three names would alleviate this surreality. but after two days, it's really only made me feel like a poser. i could understand a lawyer wanting to go by all three names. a politician. a rich southerner with a family "name" to keep. but i work in engineering. i write freaking user manuals, and the plastic nameplate outside my taupe-carpeted cubicle squeezes out three names like a fat man in a little suit.

all of the wedding cards are addressed to my new name, which, rather than inspiring cute little newlywed giggles sends me into a momentary flash of greed, wondering who all those wedding guests are to assume i was changing my name, and wishing i hadn't changed it just to spite those assume-ers. then i get over it and realize how great it is that erik and i are a family. and how fabulous the name looks. just think, my very first boyfriend's last name was Schamburger.

i'll get over this soon, i promise. maybe if the state of california would hurry up and let me get a new driver's license, the legality of it all would make it feel more natural. who knows.

that's all from me. i really ought to revert back to my bulleted lists after this display of incoherence, eh?