My Name Is

Hello. My name is Katy Jacob. That's right. Katy with a Y, Jacob with no S. I did not say Jacobs, nor Jacobson. I am not Katie nor so help me God Kathy. The only person who calls me Kathleen is my mother, if she's channeling the 80s and pretending to be mad at me, or all of those folks who need me to sign the legal name on the dotted line.

This doesn't strike me as difficult. My name is only 9 letters long. It is not hard to pronounce. But people just can't handle it for some reason. This just seems like sloth if you ask me, this idea that we can't be bothered to call people what they would like to be called. I mean, can you imagine if we all sat around and called it Channel, as in English Channel? The French might get pissed. And we wouldn't want that.

Sometimes, I find myself writing an email at work, and I receive a response to Dear Katie. And I wonder how it can be that someone would miss THE WAY I SPELLED MY NAME IN THE MESSAGE I JUST WROTE TO HER. For almost six years, I have had an email address at work that is almost totally worthless, so I end up using a different one with an odd convention. Before I was hired, someone decided that I would be kathleen.jacob. When I started on my first day (in an office correctly labeled "Katy Jacob") I asked to have it changed and was told that was impossible. Now, Chicago's offensive line protecting its quarterback is impossible. Changing an email address? Doubtful. I informed IT that I had a lot of contacts, and not a single one of them would know who the hell Kathleen Jacob was. They ignored me. To this day, I have colleagues who have known me for 10 years who write an email that begins "um, Kathleen, is this actually Katy Jacob? Is that you?"

And don't get me started on the fact that I kept my so-called "maiden" name (where my maidens at? milking?). Yes, it's true. The other three members of my immediate family have a different last name than mine. This does not strike me as complicated, nor interesting. By the time I got married at age 29, I had established a solid career for myself; there were dozens of publications using the name Katy Jacob (no, I did not resort to a more "sophisticated" name when I got published) and everyone knew me by that name. But I won't pretend for a minute that that's why I kept my name. I just had no interest in changing it. It seemed like a pain in the ass, and my name had served me well for almost 30 years.

As an aside, I've never understood this argument that if you have different names, you will end up fighting about what names to give your kids. If you are going to raise kids together, you're going to have bigger problems. I figure that the person who cares more, wins. Because God help us all if we had decided to hyphenate, because in the back of my mind I have always wondered what happens when two hyphenated people get together. Do their kids have four names? Do they just give up and turn their name into a graphic symbol, like TAFKAP did? Well, in our case, it didn't matter, because neither of us cared.

So, I kept my name and the kids got Gabe's name, and that was mainly my decision. Inside I was thinking, ha! now try and deny that paternity, sucker! because I am a little bit of a cynical person. And I didn't feel the need to prove to anyone that those kids were mine, because, you know, they grew inside my body for nine months and then I pushed them into the world, endoskeletons and all--THROUGH MY VAGINA. I am not trying to have to prove they're mine after that, NO SIR.

Gabe, being a guy, could have cared more, I suppose, and in a way, he did. And no, I don't mean that he had some caveman attitude about his woman having his name or proving that he's the real baby daddy. He actually wanted to change his name to mine. He has no attachment to his last name. It's not his father's name--it's the name of the guy his mom was married to before she met his dad. So, there is one other person in Gabe's family with his name, which belongs to some dude he's never met (not that he's met his father, either).

I told him there was no reason to change his name. He said, but then we would be the same and that would be romantic! I sighed, wondering how deep this whole gender role reversal thing was going to be in our lives. I told him he would decide against it. A few days later he came at me all pissed off, saying, do you know that for a man to change his name to his wife's in Illinois, you have to pay money and go to court and GET PERMISSION? He didn't even get to the normal part about changing his social security card etc. He never got past the disparity where women can change their names to their husbands', no questions asked...but men could not do the same.

I sighed again. OK, you could make this political. Or just admit that it's a pain in the ass, and keep your damn name.

I mean, really, who cares? Years ago, when I was about 20 and working an internship over the summer, I got into this conversation with an older colleague who was all shades of BITTER that his wife kept her name. He went on and on about how CONFUSING it was, especially with the kids at their schools and doctors, and how people at hotels thought they were having an affair because their names were different yadda yadda.

And I countered: Really? Because this is Chicago. Half of the kids growing up in this city are born to single parents, most of whom don't share their last name. Are you telling me they don't go to the doctor? Or go to school? Kids are raised by grandparents, neighbors, hell some kids aren't raised at all. There's no one in this town who is balking at some different last name bullshit.

And then there's the hotel argument. Now, let's be honest. What hotel employee on earth gives a shit if you are having an affair? What hotel employee even notices that you are there? The first time I went on a "trip" with a boyfriend that involved a hotel and not a campsite, I was probably 21, broke, and oblivious. We walked into some motel in southern Illinois, this young, interracial couple with no rings anywhere near our fingers, and the bored concierge looked at us with hostility and asked in a threatening voice:

Do you have a credit card?

I could have said that he'd kidnapped me. I could have said that we were part of a cult that survived on a diet of kittens. I could have said ANYTHING, and she would have asked DO YOU HAVE A CREDIT CARD. Once I handed the card over, it could have had his name on it or the President's, and it would have been all the same to her.

Now I am not saying that people shouldn't change their names. I understand that some people feel strongly about this one way or the other. I'm just putting it out there that I don't. I know there are arguments about being a cohesive family unit and all of that. But cohesive isn't my strong suit. I can appreciate the whole same name thing though. Hell, it makes it easier for me if you do keep it all the same. I can call you the Jacksons or write holiday cards to the Jackson family. It enables my laziness.

But people should get to claim their names, you know? Don't call me something else. And don't--DO NOT--try and tell my kids they should have different names. Lenny's at a new school (correction--she was there, before the strike--maybe 4 days of first grade is enough?) and her teacher is insisting on calling her Lenora. It's something about calling them by their "real" names before they can go by their "nicknames." So my kid is convinced she'll get in trouble, be expelled to the land of unruly nicknamed children, if she writes "Lenny" on her homework or asks to be called that.

So I did what any good mom would do in this situation. I told her to break the rules and not worry about it because her name is Lenny. I mean look, that's how she autographs her artwork. One name--like Cher. I remembered when I was in college and I had a professor who insisted on calling me Kathleen because "it's a beautiful Irish name." Um, I'm not Irish. And I don't respond to that--please call me Katy. And this pretentious guy, who called his wife his "lover" and made us meet for class AT HIS HOUSE, kept up with Kathleen until he realized that I wasn't Irish, I was mostly German and stubborn as hell, and he gave up. I remembered when Lenny was not even 18 months old, and she shouldn't have been able to talk, much less express this thought, and she told her daycare providers who insisted on calling her Lenora "I'm NOT Lenora. I'M LENNY."

And she is. She always has been. There's only one Lenny. You can tell me it's a boy's name, and I would have to ask: how many little boys do you know named Lenny? I mean, besides the ones who play whiskey-swilling Chicago gangsters on TV? As far as I know, there's one Lenny. And she knows, on some level, how awesome her name is. How many kids are named after Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitar? Yeah, that's right. Who needs a baby name book when you have pop culture? When people would ask my mom how she chose my brother's name, which was odd at the time, she probably just smiled and let them think about the Bible. But we knew the truth. Remember the Rifleman? Lucas McCain? Yeah, Lucas.

I think about Augie, the kid who didn't have a nickname until he was born. We thought we might call him A.J., since his middle name is my last name. But then he was in the world, and he was SUCH an Augie. I can't imagine it any other way. People, men especially, tried calling him A.J. for a while--but only until they got to know him.

I remember when I was doing online dating and I thought I would just give up on the whole of humanity if I met one more guy named Brian or David or Michael (even when his name was actually Ron, but really, can you blame him?). I started dating guys who had more unique names just so I could remember who the hell they were. Guys with names like Gabe, which is so common now, but almost unheard of in my generation.

If you meet Gabe, he will shake your hand and introduce himself as Gabriel. That is because he will assume that you are a jackass who would otherwise hear him say hi I'm Gabe, and you will respond, oh nice to meet you DAVE. So he goes with Gabriel.

But here's the problem. His name is not Gabriel. I'm pretty sure his legal name is Gabe. It's hard to tell, because he was born on a commune and his birth certificate is not entirely normal, but I think it's just Gabe. This could be a problem, since it says Gabriel on our marriage license. Sometimes I wonder if anyone will ever decide that our marriage is somehow null and void due to this, and then if the election goes a certain way, will we be put in prison camps or something for being people who have lived in sin for years, bound for an express train straight to hell with all the other people who use birth control or pay a high percentage of their income in taxes or do REALLY REALLY bad things like make abortion jokes while they're hanging out at Planned Parenthood? I mean, you add in the weird birth certificate and the commune and, well, we're toast.

But I know something you don't know. There's another reason he introduces himself as Gabriel. It's BECAUSE his mom didn't name him that, and she decided to give him a unique middle name as well: Lincoln.

That's right. His name is Gabe Lincoln.

Just take a minute to digest that information. And realize that if he wants it to be Gabriel, who am I to argue? After all, we're married. I have all kinds of other names for him. Most of them are just between the two of us. Others are just too good not to share.

Right, Gabraham?

Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned from Playing Cards

Well, here it is--the first entry in my new blog, which isn’t about cancer, except for when that whole subject just inevitably creeps into my psyche. I’ll still be writing at katydidcancer, but lately I’ve realized I need a new venue. Maybe that means that I’ve begun to believe that katyDIDcancer, as in the past tense. But mostly, it’s because sometimes I think of things that I’m dying to write about, but I fear that no one will want to read anything “normal” that I have to say. Or, I don’t write what I’m really thinking because it seems almost sacrilegious, because I am supposed to be living in my post-cancer sunbeam thanking my pink nail polish for the right to live another day. I might think to myself, oh that shit is hilarious, but…damn, I can’t put that in the CANCER blog.

What's a girl to do? Well first, she needs to remember that it is other people that make this whole trip worthwhile--the people you love, the people you've lost, and even those you've never met. Including that person who googled the phrase "live chicken on six," somehow got sent to a blog about breast cancer, and actually read the post. That person was able to make a girl happy in a way that is hard to describe, because it is too random, too meaningless. Too perfect.

So here I am, admitting that, as Gloria Steinem once said, “Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else.” And, as my wise grandmother once said, “I like the clouds.”

That was worth saying, and worth writing down.

So is this.

I have spent over thirty years of my life playing cards. Around the same time that my grandfather decided to teach me to dance like Fred and Ginger, he taught me to play gin. I was probably five or six years old. Soon my brother, or maybe my parents, taught me poker. Later I learned to play hearts, and spit, and spite and malice, and so many other games. I spent countless hours playing solitaire in my tiny room, at the dining room table on rainy days, during my lunch breaks. I played cards on dates and in huge unruly groups as a teenager. I wished there were people my age who knew how to play bridge so that I could learn. Sometimes, I would dream in cards, hearts and diamonds floating around in my subconscious, not as metaphors, not at all. These days, I am teaching my six and a half year old daughter how to play cards, just as adults taught me all those years ago.

And it’s just about the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

People say, I learned everything I ever needed to know (fill in the blank), but it’s rarely true. This time, though…I wonder. As I gain the perspective of someone teaching someone else this skill, I think about how hard it is to tell even our closest people the things that are actually important, but how it is possible, instead, to show them.

I taught my daughter to play several different kinds of solitaire. A few weeks ago, when we were on vacation, I saw her playing, but I couldn’t figure out her configuration. I asked her what kind she was playing and she said she made up her own rules because it was too hard to win the ways I had taught her. I told her that defeated the purpose. But mom, I haven’t won once. How is it fun if you never win? Well, I said, if you lose, you get to put them all back together and shuffle and play again. What more do you want?

And I realized yeah…there it is. So what else have I learned from playing cards? Well, a lot of things, and not just “know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em,” though honestly, that shit is true. I’ve learned that:

If you have just two dollars in your pocket, you should never be bored.

Even the six of spades is important enough to warrant tearing up the whole house in search of it.

Trash-talking is the same as love, only more honest.

Worn-in is better.

You cannot play ten-card gin with a child. Their hands are simply too small. Play with seven cards instead.

War is a monotonous and pointless game.

It’s important to pay attention to people’s faces, and to the things they like to keep.

You should always have friends you don’t need to talk to at all.

Sometimes you have to pick up the entire pile, even if that makes your loss inevitable. It will be worth it while it lasts.

Dad can win the game, but he will always lose the contest.

Large, raucous groups are a lot of fun, but one other person is enough.

Someday, you will move far away from your family’s home. You will meet a complete stranger who will share your living quarters. You will look hostilely at one another and you will declare that you need to make some house rules. She will consider this and say, fine. Do you play rummy? And almost 20 years later you will still love her.

Some men are kings, some are jacks, and some are jokers. Women are more likely to be judged by their wardrobes.

The best part of being the dealer is deciding what’s wild.

It’s worth learning how to shuffle using the riffling bridge, no matter how many times the cards fly out of your hands before you get it right.

It’s good to have a lucky number, especially if you never tell anyone what it is.

Some people will always think "booze" when they hear the number 21, and others will always think “blackjack.”

You will meet a lot of men in your life. This fact might include a 20 year old you knew for a hot minute when you were 17. He flirted with your mom, couldn’t be taken seriously, and you never missed him after the month you spent together. But amongst all the flowers, jewelry, mixtapes and everything else you’ve received over the last quarter century from various love interests, you made sure to keep the box he carved for you to store your playing cards. Because, after all, I mean, DAMN. He whittled for you. Correction—he whittled you a box for your playing cards.

It’s possible to get lost in time, thinking about patterns and colors and numbers, and that’s fine.

Plastic chips are as much fun as money, and everyone can play.

And finally, this:

Daughter, you are a very smart girl, perhaps smarter than the lot of us. You will do many impressive things in your life. But I will never be prouder of you than I was when you were six years old, at the moment when, after seven games that you had resignedly lost, you slapped your little hand down and said “BAM! GIN! You should have known I was holding those sixes.”

I could only shake my head, because you were right—you had beaten me.

Fair and square.