I have already been asked multiple times if I plan on taking my fiancé’s last name when we marry in May. Since we still have half a year until that big day, I imagine I’ll get the question another hundred times, or so. He has a nice last name, he does, but it’s Scottish, not French. And what with my affinity for France and the music it has birthed, well, it’s hard to part with the current version of the name my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, grandfather brought over from Normandy in the 1600s. Call me sentimental. Call me nostalgic. It’s in my genes. Seriously. You should have met my grandfather. And it’s what makes me step on stage each night.

That sense of sentimental nostalgia will make me step on stage next month, too, when I present my first solo cabaret in Chicago.  Robert de La Berge, I hope you’d approve.