A few months after leaving Sam, I reclaimed my name professionally. I was on the verge of filing for divorce (which I never did) and I was starting to write again (which I'd done very little of in the second half of our marriage) and I didn't want his name in print above my work.

I was on deadline one afternoon, reading back through a story and there it was at the top: "By Elaina Blacksmith." I thought: That's not true. That's not me. Felt like his name was sticking its tongue out at me.

A few quick keystrokes and I was back to the woman I'd been forever, the woman I swore I'd always be. Sure, it was just a symbolic change. But there's a big lot of truth in symbolism.

When I got married, I didn't give much thought to giving-up "Goodman." I figured I'd always write under it, so no big deal if I became Blacksmith for everything else. Huh! What total crap. Or as my good friend says, TFBS — you can figure what it stands for.

I had the foresight to recognize and to tell Sam my writing comes from all the people who came before me. Even if they didn't publish or do this for a living, I come from generations and generations of writers and the name on my work should honor the family it comes from. "Blacksmith" had nothing to do with it.

Funny thing, though: The further I got into marriage, further I got from myself, the less it mattered. "Goodman" became "Goodman-Blacksmith" in print and eventually, when I discovered it wouldn't fit over a single newspaper column, I dropped Goodman. By then, I was so far away from my original self, I didn't care what I was called.

I know a lot of women who regret taking their partner's name, and a few who have recently taken back their own. They've incorporated it with a hyphen or reverted to it for professional purposes while keeping their partners name for personal matters.

What do you do when your best isn't good enough?

I have asked everyone in my Rolodex of life whom I suspected might be capable of giving me an insightful answer. They all replied, "You keep going."

No shit, Sherlock — but how?

No one seems to be able to tell me how I'm supposed to go about this. In theory, I understand this rationale completely, but in practice, this proves to be much more difficult.

Of course, the cynic in me also has to wonder whether these people would be able to persevere themselves, should they happen to lose their entire foundation while having to complete a 180-degree life change.

They're all in very comfortable niches in one form or another. Many of them have admitted to never facing a set of circumstances as dire as mine. It's not every day that one's entire life changes virtually overnight.

I never thought that this would happen for me, but I am beginning to lose faith. Unfortunately for me, that's about all I have left.

OK — it's the dreaded last week of summer...and we all hang on to it like a dog to the pant leg of a postman. This might be a good thing since everyone I know has gained weight since it began.

What's up with that?

Bloated single moms everywhere are racing around getting their kids ready for school. Booting up for back to school is "tums"-ultuous when you're a single mom. It's a frenzy of exhausting checklists, kids need everything, and you are a human money pit.

Going away, if you can swing it or a few more rule-free days, is a good thing...staying home and puttering around is also a good thing.

There's nobody to do business with...or make an impression upon.

Nobody cares...well almost nobody.

If people owe you money, you cant get a hold of them.

If you owe people money, they're away and you buy a few days.

The mythical end of summer will confuse you next week because you pull back the curtain and it will still look and feel exactly like summer, only you are not supposed to be having fun anymore.

So — whatever is going on with you this week, make sure you try to maximize any and every last window of opportunity of guilt-free summer pleasure for yourself.

You know you deserve it, and goodness knows next week is going to feel a lot different...even if it looks the same.

I took introduction to psychology in college so I have a general idea of what the term "passive aggressive" means. It wasn't until recently, however, that I really got to witness it in person.

Apparently my husband has decided that this is his newest way to complain about the things I do without actually complaining about them.

Here are a couple of examples, which could easily be compiled with a slew of others for a "passive-aggressive husband reference manual":

The other day my kids and I went out to lunch with a couple of other moms and their kids. I don't eat out for lunch all the time, and this was an impromptu get-together. I had packed my husband a lunch that morning for him to take to work so he had leftovers. When he gets home he tells me this: "The guys at work said, 'Let me get this straight...she gets to eat out for lunch and you have to eat leftovers? Man, that's messed up!' Ha-ha!"

Translation: He's ticked off that I got to eat out and he had to eat leftovers.

My husband recently did some volunteer work with the guys at church that involved a lot of physical labor and when he got home he said, "Bob told me he was so glad that his wife and daughter were out of town because after we finished up he was going to go home and take a long nap without interruption. Ha-ha!"

Translation: He wants to take a nap but knows that we already agreed that he would take the kids so I could get some work done. He's hoping I suggest he takes a long nap and I'll just stay up until two in the morning working.

How do I know it's all passive aggressive? These comments don't even go with the flow of conversation. They come out of nowhere, and he gives a long pause afterward as though he's waiting for me to fall to my knees and beg his forgiveness for going out to eat with my friends/not offering him a four hour nap/whatever else I do that ticks him off.

My father showed up at my house yesterday. In case you don't remember, this is my father's story.

Along with being my father, he is also a drug addict and master manipulator. Until yesterday he was living down south, in and out of homeless shelters, in and out of psych wards, in and out of various churches and occasionally he slept on the street.

I have tried, and my family has tried, to help him several times; each time, we got screwed over.

Upon seeing him this time, I got such an instant headache that I thought my head was going to explode. I sort of just stood there with my mouth hanging open.

He explained to me that he was there because he wants to get help. He asked me to help him get help.

I called my mother and told her what was going on. (They divorced when I was a baby.) She was very short and obnoxiously said to me, "The only reason that you would do anything to help him is because you want attention. He has other people to help him, let them do it." I told her I had to go.

I was stunned by the way she treated me; by the tone of her voice, and by what she said. I tried to let it go but it kept creeping back into my consciousness as I was taking my father in and out of various doctors' offices.

I realized that I think my mother may feel guilty. I'm sure if I chose a total jerk to be the father of my child (which, actually, I did) — a total jerk that can't get his life together and is a huge burden on me — I'd feel badly about it also.

I wonder if this is a common problem for divorced parents. Does anyone else have any experience with this?

I feel as though I should have been saving up something deeply profound to say here — something that will mark this, something that one might print out and post on one's bathroom mirror. Something deep. Something meaningful. Something universal and marvelous that will affect and impress everyone.

Yeah. I've got nothing.

When I started writing for this site, I had visions of a hilarious series chronicling my forays back into the dating world. This will be delightful, I thought. I'm in my 30s and have been married most of my life. I have never dated as an adult. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Turning the odd and the icky into a column will make the merely awkward hilarious, and what a comfort that will be. A bad first date will have some purpose. I will try many things in the name of research. I will be Carrie Bradshaw, only without the shoe thing.

It was an excellent plan. I had been dating for a bit, so had some stories saved up. I had no desire at all to do anything beyond casual. You couldn't beat me into a real relationship with a stick.

Then of course, I found myself in one, despite the kicking and screaming, despite refusing, for months, to give it a name. So this has become less about the hilarity of Watching-Alice-Try-to-Figure-Out-Dating and more the hilarity of Watching-Alice-Skid-into-Commitment. Which is constantly startling, really.

It has been a surprising help, these columns. Finding the right words for something here has often helped put things in perspective, or decide where to go, or just ease the feelings over something.

So, thank you, those of you who have been here with me, those that have commented, those who have read, and those who write along with me. I've very much appreciated your company, and look forward to bringing you along on future adventures.

If life is a journey, it's no weekend jaunt to the beach. It's an around-the-world expedition riddled with dangerous passages and course corrections.

My marriage is a journey, unfortunately quite a rough one of late. My relationship to my ailing father and my siblings who also help take care of him is always under construction.

Like many people, I also grapple with work-life balance: how much of myself do I put into my job or even any given project, and how much do I hold in reserve?

I've added another journey. Crazy, right? But stick with me...this one might be worth the added trouble.

I've embarked on a six-month yoga teacher training, and it's intense. The amount and level of physical, academic, and emotional study only seems to grow, week to week. At one point early on I said to a classmate that this might not have been the right time to engage in such a difficult program. Then we started our course of yogic philosophy.

Now I'm chartering more twists and turns in my mind than on the mat. While the training is physically challenging, this journey goes within, and the steadiness of mind I'm building benefits every part of my life.

So this one's a staycation. And there couldn't be a better time for it.