There’s the usual “Last time I checked, my maiden name came from my father, grandfather, great-grandfather, etc., so forgive me if I can’t see how keeping it and not taking my husband’s name is some feminist act” response, as well. This used to make sense to me, until some writer pointed out that this idea presumes that women don’t actually have last names, we are given them by men. No. All three of the last names I have been known by felt like me, and a good part of the reason that I took my first and second husbands’ last names was because I was ready for a change in identity, a new last name to mark a new phase in my life.

My birth name, incidentally, was “Lent.” The same issue that featured “The Ms. Myth” on the cover also featured an article on Lent that was highlighted on the cover as “Lent is for Everyone” or something like that. (Sorry, I don’t have a hard copy and can’t read the tiny cover script online.) As you can imagine, that amused me no end — the reason I took my first husband’s last name, Pearce, is some evidence that Lent is not for everyone.

And it didn’t have to do with any feeling that I ought to take my husband’s last name, or certainly any feeling against my parents or my father of blessed memory. It was Robin Lent I was tired of: tired of being a child, tired of my socially alienated self, ready to grow up and enter a new phase of my life. Which is why, when I got divorced, the notion of returning to my birth name wasn’t even an option. I was Robin Pearce. It didn’t matter where I “got” the name: it was mine. I don’t feel as though my clothing is any less my own because I don’t spin the wool, weave the fabric, and sew it myself — it’s mine because I wear it, and it expresses who I am. So too with my last names.

It felt so much like me that I hesitated a bit before taking “Abrahams” when Mr. Improbable and I married. But I did, because, again, it seemed that a major life transition was underway: not only was I getting married after a long time of being single, but I was getting my doctorate and already planning to convert to Judaism. I liked the idea of us both having the same last name; it made us seem more of a team somehow. And I wanted a Jewish last name to go with my new identity as a Jew. (Although, if he’d been named “Lipschitz,” I might have reconsidered. And I do go to a Reform temple so liberal that our current president’s last name is “McIntosh.”)

Lent, Pearce, Abrahams — different names, all mine, all denoting different phases of my life. I wonder if changing one’s name were more common in this culture, if it weren’t bound up with marriage traditions, but something that people could simply do or not do as they see fit, with no feminist/patriarchal/family baggage around it, who would? And when?

When in your life would you have changed your name, and what to, and why?

(There were also some letters about my February 7 response to the woman who was overcome with emotion — not repulsion, as the headline said, I didn’t write that — about her granddaughter’s amputated leg. More on that later, because I’ve already gone on much longer than I planned to with this name business!)

I love this blog, and the way it enables me to share all the weird things I notice, to ruminate about theater or psychology or fashion or religion or just about anything. I love your thoughtful comments. And I do hope to get back to daily posting soon. But it’s not going to happen right now. Keep me in your RSS feed (and your hearts), and keep checking my Twitter feed (robinabrahams) for links to stuff I think you’d be interested in. And in the meantime, I thank you for your patience. Once I get off thruster power and back into full warp speed, the good times will resume in full force. I just need a little time to pull my resources — physical, emotional, mental — back together.

I’ve been noticing through internet and face-to-face relationships that the past week or two has been weird for everyone. Blogs that I read are having comment drama. (Including a bit on my own, which I am just not dealing with right now.) People are having accidents. Washington D.C. is covered in snow while here there’s not a flake on the ground. Friends are fighting and breaking up. The Smoke Monster’s rival is inhabiting a re-animated Sayid. (That’s my theory.)

Tell me it’s not just me and my network. Has this been a weird time for you as well? What, if anything, do you attribute it to? Midwinter madness?

Let’s consider this an open thread, and also a requests thread. Anything you’d like me to blog about? Or follow up on from previous discussions?

I suppose the ConductMom has more or less decided how I’ve turned out, and it’s not as though anyone is pushing her to give me a little brother or sister at this point, finally. But it did remind me of another thing she used to say — when I was a child, people often asked, “But aren’t you afraid she’ll be spoiled?” upon learning I had no siblings. To which my mother would reply, “We were afraid she was, but it turns out she always smells that way.”

You know I had to get it from somewhere.

Mr. Improbable and I both like them, but Milo’s not so sure. He’s such a fashion conservative.

In case you can’t tell, the frames* are black on top and green on the bottom. I wanted to blog this whole outfit, because I like it, but we didn’t get a good full shot. Do, though, check out my cool bib necklace. I picked this up for a mere $10 at Buffalo Exchange, a new used-clothing store in Davis Square (and elsewhere — they’re a chain). It looks a lot like this one. I love wearing it with this dress, because it hits right at the neckline and therefore looks like an embellishment on the dress itself. I bet making zipper jewelry would be a fun project — you get a lot of bang for some broken zippers, a piece of felt, and a hank of ribbon.

*Yes, given that Michelle Obama is my fashion muse and inspiration (some might say obsession), I did find it ironic that the make of frames I chose is called “Sarah,” thank you very much.

This one felt more like a need, and I was wondering what was up with that.

To an extent, it clearly had to do with the fact that I haven’t gotten out much in December and January — in December, I had to cancel almost all my social plans due to illness, and I’m still trying to figure out how social life works when you can’t drink and more or less can’t eat, either. (Any local readers know a hip Cambridge joint that specializes in steel-cut oatmeal and herbal tea? Didn’t think so.) So a bit of it was compensatory for my lack of a social life — if I couldn’t go out, I could at least get inspiration from style blogs and put some fun outfits together for when I could.

But the fact that I was focusing so much on the writers and academics, and their work wardrobes, was my real clue to what was going on.

I think this is the resolution I make every New Year — Jewish and Gregorian and school and fiscal and anything else — concentrate. Work when I am working, play when I am playing. It’s hard, isn’t it, for those of us who work on the computer? I’m not saying I even want to work more, or harder, or whatever. Just that when I’m writing, I should write (and not shop for cardigans on eBay), and when I am done working, there should be no vague guilt or occasional checking of e-mail.

Anyway, this is why, I think, I’ve been so interested in style blogs by academics and writers and other people for whom work and life and play and duty get blurry around the edges. Because one way you can define those edges is through how you dress. And when you’re a freelancer, you need all the help you can get. (Oh, all right, I am writing this in my bathrobe, okay?)

So one of my new — not resolutions, but practices — is to get dressed and get out more in order to do my work. I live in a city rich with coffee shops and libraries, and ought to take more advantage of them. I’m suspecting this will help my productivity and my mood (writers, academics, at-home parents, and other home-employed people — you know that dazed, almost jet-lagged feeling when the sun goes down and you realize you haven’t been out of the house all day? Hate that!) as well as the local economy.

Off to choose an outfit!

- Met and married Mr. Improbable
- Got my PhD
- Converted to Judaism
- Taught college for two years
- Started writing the Miss Conduct column, and eventually two blogs
- Wrote my first book

… along with various other life-transition experiences, like starting to travel overseas and getting a dog.

That list isn’t meant to be “ooh, haven’t I accomplished an impressive lot,” but as evidence of what a huge decade of transition the 00s were for me. According to psychologists who study adult development, we spend about half our adult life in periods of transition. Sometimes it can be hard to know when you’re in one of those phases — maybe you don’t realize you’re in transition until you’ve already made the change.

What are you doing when you’re not in transition? Building on what you’ve got. Which is how I’m feeling at the moment: all the major pieces in my life are in place. Now it’s up to me to do something with them, to start husbanding and growing my resources.

I don’t ever recall before having a calendar decade match so closely with a personal turning point (which is probably why I got such a kick out of that post by the blogger who was born in a year ending in zero) before. Have you? How were the Oughts for you?