In which I’m finally rid of my married name!

I decided recently to get a passport. No real reason. I don’t have any travel plans, but one never knows — and I have the money just now so what the hell. Maybe I’ll get to India before I’m 50.

Today I went to my second appointment with the passport lady at the post office, and I gave her a bunch of paperwork and money and she made me re-do my work about three times, which is impressive considering it’s only a two-page freakin’ application and I’d already done it twice and I have a reasonably high IQ.

Halfway through the procedure, the passport lady decided they’d probably reject my application because the name on my driver license did not match the name on my divorce papers well enough. She suggested I go update my driver licence. And could I maybe possibly do it, like, right now, since she’d already put my passport application on her transmittal and she had no idea how to remove it and the paperwork has to go today?

A driver license. Before three o’clock today? Sure. What the hell. I’ll try.

So off I went to the DMV on my bike during my lunch hour. (It’s all downhill, so the ride out there was pretty okay.) I walked in the door and I kid you not: there was no line! None! Talk about support of nature: I got help immediately, which has literally NEVER HAPPENED IN THE HISTORY OF THE DMV. The mild glitches (they had to delete an old expired license from the last time I lived in Washington, plus I very nearly flunked the vision test) were neatly handled. (Note to self: get new contacts.) Less than an hour later, with my name all changed and a new temporary driver licence in my purse, I rode back to the post office. (It was all uphill.) I stopped at Taco Bell, about halfway, for a tostada because I was hungry. (Did I mention it’s all uphill?)

Anyway, I got back to the post office and finished my application and it’s off for processing! Whee! Soon I shall receive a shiny new passport and a shiny new license in the mail. Both pictures are horrible. And both will not have my married last name, which no one could ever pronounce anyway, and both will have my spiritual name in place of my original middle name, because that’s the name on my divorce papers!

Michelle Tanusri Morgan¹. That’s my name now. Legally. I’m pretty tickled about it. It’s like getting a really good haircut or something. I have the name my mother gave me, and the name my Mother gave me². It’ll be on my death certificate. Future descendants³ will know great aunt Mush was one of those weird name-changing fucking hippies! Win!

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go practice my new signature, because I really have no idea how to deal with this whole T situation.

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¹ Tanusri [TAH-nu-shree], the name given me by my Satguru, means “Embodiment of beauty.”
² Actually, I think my dad — rather than my mother — picked the name Michelle.
³ Just kidding. There won’t be any descendants. I have no kids, and my brother probably won’t either. I’ll just be some weird name on a family tree with nothing depending from it. One of those branch-ends.