I'm an orange moon

[or not]

It is 4:46 AM. Civilized people are asleep, and I am too lazy to use initials.

Jeremy got sick of Evergreen and decided to give the UW a try, so he came and spent a few days at the apartment while he found a place to live. Even though we weren't very close friends in high school, I always felt like he 'got' a lot about me—and more so after we'd both left the LDS church. It was nice.

His mom called and spoke to me to get my address to mail some things for him, and she wanted to know if my last name was still the same. I was somewhat confused. 'Well,' she said after a pause, 'I guess no point in changing your last name before you get married.'

'I'm not changing my last name after getting married.'

'Oh. Ooooh.' Long pause. 'Anyway...'

When she called later and spoke to Jeremy, she asked him if the boy I was marrying was mormon (though I'm fairly sure she knew he isn't, and that I don't go to church anymore, and all that—but of course I could be wrong). Fine mormons we'd be, living together. I suppose my parents aren't the only ones who have fits of denial and hope a nice mormon boy will set me back on the straight and narrow.

I also told my parents I wasn't planning on changing my name. Actually, because I'm a big chicken, I told my parents that I was thinking of not changing my name. They both seemed somewhat upset, specially my dad. Men, he told me, love us a lot and will do a lot of things for us and put up with a lot of things for us, but some things are very important. But if Jed thinks having the same last name is very important and he's unable to tell me about it when we're planning on getting married, we have a problem, I argued. Take the American name, insisted my dad, you'll have a lot less problems, people will treat you better. Nonsense, I told them, there are people in Chile who are of European descent and there are people in the US who are of Hispanic descent and have been there for generations and generations and they simply are Chilean and American, respectively. But while I argued with them, I hated knowing that in some ways my dad was right; some people won't ever accept someone who doesn't quite fit their idea of what an American should be, and changing my last name might make some things smoother for me. But I can't agree to that, and I console myself with the thought that this'll weed such people out.

Then my mom joined in. I could just do what they do down there, she suggested. Now, I should explain. I have four names, as is customary in Chile. My first name, my middle name, my father's last name, and my mother's last name. My mother's maiden name was [removed], but when she got married she became [removed]. The idea is that when you get married you drop your mother's last name and add your husband's instead.
But I can't—no, I don't want to do that. I tried explaining to them that I wouldn't just drop either of their last names.

My dad sighed.

My mom told me she could see where I was coming from.

I don't even want to imagine what it's gonna be like when they realize that the closest thing to grandchildren they're gonna get from me are my cats.