(no subject)

It's the oddest thing. I think I lost my birth certificate a few years back. It may well have even been a decade or so ago. With my passport and my driver's license I just hadn't needed it at all. Nearly eight years ago, an ex-boyfriend of mine found the information needed to get birth certificates from the Ohio department of records, and I'd written the information down dutifully.

Just this weekend, John went through a box of old papers, most of them we threw out, but in the midst of it all was this one piece of paper with two sticky notes that had the phone numbers of the places I needed to write and/or talk to with an amount of money for the record and an address and a list of what information they needed to issue the certificate. The list of data wasn't that long. It seemed silly that I could send just that little bit of data in and they'd just give me my identity back.

I called. On a Saturday. So I got their recorded message that mentioned, of all things, a web site! So I went there, ordered a copy of my birth certificate, with the requisite information.

I wondered if they could send it to me, without the number from my previous certificate. And then, sure enough, today, my certificate arrived in the mail. Wow.

So I'm me, again, with a nice, crisp, official birth certificate that even smells official.

(no subject)

It's the oddest thing. I think I lost my birth certificate a few years back. It may well have even been a decade or so ago. With my passport and my driver's license I just hadn't needed it at all. Nearly eight years ago, an ex-boyfriend of mine found the information needed to get birth certificates from the Ohio department of records, and I'd written the information down dutifully.

Just this weekend, John went through a box of old papers, most of them we threw out, but in the midst of it all was this one piece of paper with two sticky notes that had the phone numbers of the places I needed to write and/or talk to with an amount of money for the record and an address and a list of what information they needed to issue the certificate. The list of data wasn't that long. It seemed silly that I could send just that little bit of data in and they'd just give me my identity back.

I called. On a Saturday. So I got their recorded message that mentioned, of all things, a web site! So I went there, ordered a copy of my birth certificate, with the requisite information.

I wondered if they could send it to me, without the number from my previous certificate. And then, sure enough, today, my certificate arrived in the mail. Wow.

So I'm me, again, with a nice, crisp, official birth certificate that even smells official.

The really startling thing...

... was looking at my certificate and there's a box for each parent that says "Race or Color" and in it, plain as day, is the word "Yellow".

Zowie.

The really startling thing...

... was looking at my certificate and there's a box for each parent that says "Race or Color" and in it, plain as day, is the word "Yellow".

Zowie.