the glamorous high profile life of a college bus driver
actually, this post isn't really going to be about my glamorous high profile life as a college bus driver, but i needed a good hook.

i may or may not have lived out this internal struggle on the blog - i can't remember. but either way, i had a really rough time with The Whole Name Change Thing, starting long before i even settled on flowers and a reception venue, and continuing now, after all most of the thank you notes have been sent out.

this may strike you as a little out-of-character for me, if you knew me any time between the ages of 6 and 20. i hated my last name. it was slightly unfortunate as far as last names go, what with the hint of male genitalia in the root word. and it looked particularly unfortunate scrawled across the chest of a middle school P.E. shirt.

the sudden fear about losing the well-hated last name can be attributed to three things. let's break it down.

1. you know, my inner feminist and inner activist. why should julia be the one to change?
2. the thought of the former me ceasing to exist. she would be eliminated. that's a little alarming, no?
3. all the people who sent us checks for wedding presents MADE OUT TO SOMEBODY WHO DOESN'T EXIST YET. i think more than anything, this pissed me off. and, when i get pissed off, i get stubborn. who are these people to assume i'll be changing my name? who are you to call erik's mother 2 months after the wedding demanding an explanation as to why the checks weren't cashed yet? don't fucking rush me! i appreciate your amazing generosity, and believe me, we'd love to cash the checks and work on our home, but you're going to have to wait until i'm good and ready to change my name.

so, i finally made an appointment at the DMV. the stubbornness turned into apathy, and i decided to go ahead with it. also, i filled out all the forms with HR at work, including my health insurance, to accomodate for a name change. i should probably make sure i legally turn into that person in Aetna's database pretty soon before i get turned away at the emergency room or something.

i have a commercial class B license, from driving buses in college. (yes, it was actually a really kick-ass job). i had to go through so much goddamned bureaucracy just to get a training permit, and i'm not about to downgrade to a class C license any time soon.

most of that bureaucracy stemmed from my vision being pretty lousy - i have a mild "muscle turn" in my right eye. when severe, those are the sort of defects that make people look cross-eyed. fret not, i'm not cross-eyed. but i did have to wear a white sticker over the left lens of my glasses when i was 6. for a commercial class B, they require at least 20-40 vision in your weakest eye. i have 20-20 vision when both my eyes are open, but somewhere in the vicinity of 20-8,000,000 in my right eye. not really. something like 20-60. the problem is that muscle turn-related sight problems aren't really correctable without some sort of newfangled "prism" surgery. i barely scraped by for the last two DMV medical exams. i may or may not have tried to memorize the eye chart before covering my left eye. and you didn't just read that last sentence. "what last sentence?" good.

my DMV medical card has expired. i found this out after waiting 45 minutes past my appointment time. i generally don't make a habit of driving buses or being pulled over while driving buses these days, so how was i supposed to know my medical card had expired? by keeping track of these things? by being organized? whatever.

so we're back to square one. now it's not just idealism, mother-in-laws, and stubbornness keeping me from changing my name, it's Lenscrafters and the fucking DMV.