hyphens.....

ok, ao today i was going through an old file....prior to throwing most of it away......i work with packrats worse than myself....and throwing away is the best way to deal with them all..........when i chanced to see that one of these nurses used to go by a hyphenated last name........and now she does not.......and this concerns me....that so few women choose either to keep a given name, or to hyphen, or make some sort of compromise....like the friend who just rearranged the letters to make a new name........either way.........so few women.......sort of a backlash to the feminist movement......and i have no understanding of it all......taking my spouses name part and parcel was never an issue....had the hyphen not sounded so good i would have just kept my name........and so i have not had the chance to ask her why she took a hyphen only to backtrack.......was it just simpler, in a rural red state....did it sound too eastcoast or westcoast or progressive...or liberal......and how i have i managed to stand firm on my particular hyphen for nearly a quarter of a century....un- characterisitic attention to detail for a woman who cannot manage to squeeze the toothpaste from the end.......