today my parents are meeting chris' parents. for those of you who know my parents, this is a potentially disasterous situation. my mother is, to put it nicely, a total and complete nut-job. she has far too many mental problems to begin to list, and, while mental problems like mine are kind of cute and endearing, her mental problems have created a sort of super-villain-like persona. she's mean and rude and she has the look of somebody about to snap and take out a few innocent victims in the process. the sneer on her face is permanent and deadly, and the inane questions that she'll bludgeon complete strangers with border on the frighteningly retarded. i am scared. be scared for me, too.

i'll try to laugh them off. who will follow suit?

the other day i signed my name at work on all of the closing papers. then it struck me: after i get married, i'll be signing a different name. who is this jaclyn berger girl, and what will her signature look like? i tried scrawling out the new name, but the "b" felt so unnatural. cursive b's are a bit of a bitch. it's going to take me upwards of two hours to sign my new name on credit card slips, police reports, admittane papers into local sanitariums, etc, etc. i can't wrap my head, or signing hand, around it.

i guess i've got some time to get used to it. or i could keep my name. then the kids at my high school reunion will assume that, true to my word, i never did marry and just spent my life in solitude with an apartment's worth of cats.