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More name change

Bryan McCormick in a house he Airbnb'd near California's Salton Sea - the first leg of his leaving-Las Vegas adventure.

Bryan McCormick in a house he Airbnb'd near California's Salton Sea - the first leg of his leaving-Las Vegas adventure.

1. Heidi Kyser’s Open Topic piece from November, about the bureaucratic horrors of trying to recover her maiden name after getting married, continues to resonate. Particularly with a reader named Michael Farrell Ellsworth, formerly just Michael Farrell — he took his wife’s surname when they were recently married. Why? “It is pretty simple,” he writes. “My wife did not want to change her last name, and I wanted us to have the same last name as a couple. So I did what I did.”

Well, there’s pretty simple and there’s pretty simple: “As for the mechanics of the name change, what a royal pain in the butt!” (Welcome to the process so many women have to go through.) Business contacts, social media and other types of accounts, credit cards, all had to be changed. “I was very surprised at the variation among companies as to what they require to change your name on the account. For example, on my Visa cards, I was able to do it over the phone. But for my AT&T wireless account, I had to go to a store, with a copy of the marriage certificate, my Social Security card and my driver’s license.”

How did people react to this unusual situation? Pretty well, he says. “In doing the change, I’ve talked to many people over the phone. Most have been very friendly and have congratulated me. A few seemed confused, but most were not. My guess is that more men are doing this, and also more men are doing it in the context of same-sex marriage. So it’s not a total off-the-wall thing, like it might’ve been a generation ago.”

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Nonetheless, it takes time for change to set in. “Of the (Christmas cards) that we have received so far and that are addressed to both of us,” he writes, “two are addressed to us as a couple with my old last name, eight are addressed to us as a couple with different last names and only seven are addressed to us as a couple with our correct name.”

 

2. When we think of the American Dream, it’s the one candidates allude to in their speeches as they audition for office: a stable home, family, career, stuff — roots. But there’s a flip-side American Dream, one emerging from the restless forward motion of Manifest Destiny and a fantasy of weightlessness: total freedom. Nothing to tie you down, nothing to restrict your motion. Lighting out.

Over on the Desert Companion blog, we’re featuring weekly dispatches from a well-known local photographer, Bryan McCormick, who’s decided to live in that second way. You might remember him as co-proprietor of the Las Vegas Camera Club, or from the many local arts events he showed up to. Last month, he finished getting rid of nearly everything he owned, and, carrying just one bag of clothing and another of gear, he’s going to spend a TBD amount of time … out there. He has two creative agendas: to (a) explore the “sharing economy” — Airbnb, Uber and similar companies — as he uses it to (b) immerse himself in out-of-the-way corners of the country. At press time, after a stint beside the Salton Sea, he was trying to infiltrate San Diego’s locals-only surf culture. Will he succeed, or be fed to the sharks by notoriously clannish water folk? Dial up desertcompanion.vegas to find out.