sad update from the bikini front: i stopped by the gap today and tried on the cute blue-and-white striped bathing suit top, and really, it just did not work. additionally, after hearing reports of poor quality from VS suits, i've decided not to go with that one, either. i know, it's tragic. surely i'll keep you updated if a new suit presents itself as a possibility.

but all was not lost! i came out of the gap with a cute new pair of flats (in black, not horrid pink), and an obsession with this tote, which was out of my price range. but i'll be keeping my eye on the sale page.

i know, now you all can rest easy, having been briefed on my saturday shopping activities. you're welcome.

merge points me towards the story of jodi wilgoren (the bureau chief of the nytimes in chicago, i think) and her name change. it's not just any old name change - she and her husband, unable to reconciles themselves with her taking on a new name or joining their names, combined their two last names to come up with an entirely new one. wilgoren+ruderman=rudoren.

Tradition hardly seemed enough reason for me to take his name, and I didn't want to have a different name from my future children. I imagined them asking why and realized the only possible answer was patriarchy. I didn't want my family founded on that principle. When I suggested that Gary put himself in my place — in the place of most women — facing the choice of abandoning his family name or of not having the same name as his kids, he eventually became a convert to combination.

additionally, fontana labs noted this older new york times wedding profile in which the couple invented an entirely new last name upon marriage.

is it just me, or is this ABSOLUTELY EFFING INSANE? first off, your progeny will have a lot more trouble finding out about you. i might not have known that my great-great grandfather was a chinese immigrant to san francisco who ended his life under a horse-drawn cart if he had changed "hoy" to, uh, "hoysomething else." second off, don't yall have ancestral pride? go andrews. it might not be the most original last name ever, but i like it. however, frankly, whenever the time comes for the scary marriage thing, i have no idea what i'm going to do. i can't see dropping my last name off into some void of never-to-be-seen-againness. the hyphenation thing just seems too cumbersome. and there is no way in hell i am making up a new last name. unless it is "awesome." but really, that is already implied.

sigh. i am sick, it is flurrying here in chicago, and i'm feeling a bit of travel wanderlust (or, more accurately, extreme nostalgia for italy) that i get from time to time. reading this post article on searching for truffles at restaurants in alba didn't help too much.

the post is doing a rather good job of informing readers about the magic of the piemonte region, the part of italy where turin is located and where the 2006 winter olympics will be taking place. they've got a blog going, and have had several articles and chats about the area. though piemonte is a fairly overlooked region amongst italy fanatics, it is one of the places not to be missed for food and wine, as i discovered during my year in milan through adolfo, the former librarian at the american school of milan.

ahh, adolfo. how to describe. physically, the best way i can think to conjure him up is have you picture bilbo baggins from the lord of the rings movie, except darker, with a round belly the size of a volkswagen beetle and an odd, hurky-jerky style of walking on his pencil-thin legs that was the result of serious back problems and some sort of disability. he was also perpetually cranky, with good due - he had been pushed out of his job as the school librarian by caroline, a perky-yet-psychotically-terrifying blond-frosted woman from arizona whose favorite thing to hiss was "AH-TEN-SHEE-OWN-AY" and "SEE-LENS-EE-OH, PER FAH-VOR-AY" to terrified children who spoke above a whisper while reading books. adolfo became the school's printer, responsible for making stacks of copies of lesson plans and math homework. his small, cramped printing room was in the hallway adjacent to the library, and always smelled faintly of cigar smoke. everybody, except caroline, who constantly looked at him as if he might off her one day with his cane (with good reason), adored adolfo.

none of you feel this way, do you?

I had three different people ask me what this shirt meant at Cue Bar tonight. Normally I'd spin this into a generic "kids these days" sort of complaint, but one of the questioners was a fucking bartender. Really now — bartenders should be able to do better than that. It's only been, what, half a year?