turn the other chick

02-07-00

Where have I been? Fucking nowhere. I've been stricken with laziness, journal-wise. Otherwise, I've been practicing fairly regularly, and I've been working like a dog, so to speak. I practiced tennis for two hours yesterday, and I'm sore as hell now, believe me. I'm petting cats and guinea pigs for four households, daily. I even used our long-neglected music notation software to engrave a score for a quartet that John transcribed a couple years ago. I've been wearing myself out. I started taking my vitamins again, see.

But the journal...I don't know what's going on. It's almost becoming like my euphonium practicing. Once I get started, I love it, but putting my ass in the chair and typing is such a hurdle. I have potential energy to spare—just need a push. Somebody push me.

A great push would be if something worth writing about were to happen. Hmm.

Went shopping this weekend...! I suppose I was getting geared up for the facial, which is tomorrow. I've gone from slightly nervous, like I was three days ago, to downright anxious. Why does it pain me to act like a woman? Or to admit that I have a physical need of any kind? To admit that I need anything?

I've always been that way. Remember second grade, whenever somebody had Cheetos or M+M's or anything, everybody was suddenly that kid's best friend? I couldn't do that. Okay, so I didn't need gummy, fruity, whatever. The point is, I refused to ask for it. Plenty of people asked me for shit, and I shared happily, but I never wanted to impose my presence, or need, or want, on anyone. Who knew I'd grow up to be a woman who won't ask for Diet Coke if a waitperson forgets and refills me with Sugar Coke?

So making this facial appointment seems like one of the more painful experiences in my life. (Oooh, gee, what a tough life.) First pathetic thing is that I have to pay someone to massage my neck. Or something. Then there's admitting that I feel like doing this extremely feminine thing. The worst thing is going to be facing these women whose entire careers, lives, everything is the business of being feminine.

My hands are a mess. I mean, they were a mess before, but since I've been wigging out about this, I've completely bitten off my nails and torn my cuticles to shreds. I told you, I chew myself. Remember that oral fixation I mentioned before? It manifests all over my hands. I'm so embarrassed.

Okay, on to another gender-related topic. Now that it's tax season, my last name has become an issue. For those of you not keeping score, I never changed it when I got married last summer. And I keep saying that: "I never changed it." Like, Oh, man! I totally forgot to change my name! Like, how many times did I change my name in seventh grade, in my early stages of tuba player infatuation? Like, God! I just completely lost the form, dude!

Come on. I think it's obvious, six months later, that the name is not changing. My boss asked me—wait, she didn't ask me. She informed me that getting a W-2 for tax purposes would be impossible unless I hyphenated my name. What that means is that she's too lazy to figure out what she'd have to do, even though she doesn't have to do anything except print my W-2 with my legal name on it. I mentioned to my accountant (Dad) that there might be a problem. Went like this:

Betsy: My name might be wrong on my W-2; my boss didn't know what my last name is.

Dad: What is your last name?

Betsy: Jones. Same as yours.

Dad: Why?

Betsy: I never changed it.

Dad: Why?

Betsy: Well, I can't anymore, I lost the form.

Dad: That's not a good reason.

Betsy: I just didn't feel like it.

Dad: Why?

Betsy: It sounds stupid. I like it the way it is.

Dad: Why?

That's how most conversations go with my dad. He doesn't care for frills. The guy's a tax specialist, cut him a break.

It took me years to learn to like my name. With a name like Betsy, that's not hard to believe, right? Can you imagine being in seventh grade, when "Tiffani" and "Keri" and any names ending with an "I" are cool names, and instead having a name straight out of the nineteenth century? And Jones, well, hell, what's interesting about that? Years it took me.

It all comes down to fair. I'm big when it comes to fair. I had serious issues with sibling rivalry. (Wow, check out the revelations today, huh? Orally fixated, sibling rivalry...who needs therapy?)

John doesn't care. I offered. If it had been important to him, I'd probably have hyphenated, at least. He assumed I wouldn't change it. But screw that. I would have done—still would do—the Rummel-Hudson thing. That is, if John would accept the hyphen also, so that we'd have the same name. He wrinkled his nose at that idea. Not so much about changing his name, though he didn't really want to, but more because he'd have the whole John Jones- alliteration thing going on. Gotta admit, that would suck.

But from what I've seen, the woman-only hyphen doesn't really work all that well. Her closer friends use it only until they accustom themselves to her new name. Her acquaintances just screw the hyphen. I considered tacking John's name onto the end of mine, but that's a joke. Nobody pays the slightest bit of attention to that—ask Hillary Rodham.

So few people ask what someone wants to be called. More people want to know why. Why didn't you? What are you, one a' them feminists, er somethin'?

I'm being unfair. (Fairness! ahhh....) Only a few people have done that, and one was my dad. My mom, incidentally, told me I should change it, too. Mom's the family feminist, not me. That's an issue for another day. Mom said that when I have kids, I will have to explain why Mommy and Daddy have different last names.

Okay, that sentence is wrong on so many levels, I can't even get into it.

When you're sleepy, sleep. When you're hungry, eat. When you're tired of writing, just stop. Go to bed. Shut up now, Betsy.