Yeah, so tomorrow morning I’m going to court to make my new name all official and everything. I kind of forgot to write about what it was like to tell my parents about this, but a few weeks ago I decided I absolutely had to talk to my mom immediately. I called her while I was on the way to visit my friend Theresa, who lives almost an hour away. Big news on a cell phone (while driving, sorry about that!).

I started out by chatting about some other stuff, and then said, “Listen, there’s something I need to talk to you about, but I’m a little nervous about it. I’m worried about what you’ll think.” She told me to just go ahead, and I told her, “I know this is a little weird, but I’m going to change my name.”

She was relieved, actually, because she was ready for me to tell her I had cancer or something. I think there’s a lesson here: if you have scary news to break to someone, make it seem like it’s going to be something way worse than it really is.

We went on to talk about lots of other stuff, because her acceptance just opened me right up. It was awesome.

A week ago, we went to a birthday party for my dad, and my parents made sure to tell their friends about my new name. I told them that they have parental privilege, which means they can call me whatever the heck they want to call me. But it was kind of fun explaining it to the older folks. They seemed to think that I was honoring my dad with the Irishness of it all.

Anyway, court tomorrow. If I have time, I’m going to hit the social security office and the DMV, too. Big fun!