WOW. Puck was fourteen (and a half?) and I thought that was remarkable.

He's rather unusual in his longevity, chronic condition not even counting. With it, yeah, miracle cat.

My Aunt Cindie's legally Vernelle or something like that. I dunno. No one actually uses that name, not any of her siblings (I mean, I only ever met Moss and Olga, but still, I'm pretty sure none uses the name on her passport for squat) or her niece and nephews or her non-blood relatives like me.

My sister, meanwhile, is legally Cindy, but hasn't gone by that since she was two or three.

MK sounds like an awesome kitty.

It makes me wonder if I should change it legally (not for google+ purposes, but just for ease)

I've been meaning to change my name legally to the name I've been using for 25 years, but I don't really know how to go about it and I have been lazy. I'd just be switching my first and middle names; it doesn't seem like it should be a big deal.

I'm imagining what Google would have made of my grandfather. His legal name, the one on his birth certificate, was E. P. Haley. His real name, that the attending doctor couldn't spell and so abbreviated, was Epaphroditas. And everyone called him Pete.

Am I the only member of humanity who doesn't think Jeri Ryan is attractive? She's apparently a wonderful person, but in my humble opinion has not a single attractive feature (okay, her legs). Whenever I hear folks talking about how gorgeous and sexy she is, I experience unreconcilable cognitive dissonance.

As far as I know, my legal name is not what's on my birth certificate at this point.

Yeah, my great-grandma was Recha, but started calling herself Susan as soon as she landed in the US -- neither I nor my dad knew any better until she moved into the nursing home (which in her generation was still a mostly Yiddish-speaking environment; people there could pronounce the R and the CH) and decided to take her original name back.

Name = what they call you. Wallet Name = someone's bureaucratic convenience, but may or may not correspond to anything else.

Am I the only member of humanity who doesn't think Jeri Ryan is attractive?

I have no idea who she is. This is what comes from not having cable. Off to Google.

Am I the only member of humanity who doesn't think Jeri Ryan is attractive? She's apparently a wonderful person, but in my humble opinion has not a single attractive feature (okay, her legs). Whenever I hear folks talking about how gorgeous and sexy she is, I experience unreconcilable cognitive dissonance.

I find her hot in a borderline masculine way. So I'm no help.

Dude, Tep -- Seven of Nine?

In the South, tons of men (including my grandfather) go by their middle names. And as I've shared before, my grandmother was called "Pie" since childhood by everyone - friends, family, husband. It was nowhere on her birth certificate. And I was wicked pissed when the minister giving her eulogy didn't even mention that she was called Pie and only used her given name.