It took only a couple of minutes of the courts time Monday to erase Jennifer Gabriel. Of course, Circuit Judge John Belz asked the obvious question of Jennifer: Why would you want to change your name from Jennifer Gabriel to Pussycat Doppelganger?
Its a fair question.
She explained to the judge that she is an artist (pen and ink mostly), and many of her artist friends have taken colorful names. It is not that unusual, she says, in California, where she lived for much of her life.
Belz said OK, if thats what you want to do, I wont stand in your way.
I could tell, Pussycat said later, he looked like this was the silliest thing hed ever heard of, but he was trying not to show it.
When Belz called Jennifer to the bench and noted aloud that she was there to change her name to Pussycat Doppelganger, there were upraised eyebrows and a snicker or two from the few attorneys present in Courtroom 7C.
That is to be expected. Here in central Illinois, we tend to favor our Jennifers, our Roberts and our Davids. Not many Pussycats around.
But she has always hated that name Jennifer. There are too many of them for one thing. Besides, she never met a Jennifer she liked.
She chose Pussycat Doppelganger because she says she has feline characteristics to her personality. Doppelganger is a German word. The literal translation is double goer, and it means a double for something -- like a cat, for example.
Pussycat walked out of the courthouse Monday with her new name legal and official. But she ran into trouble that afternoon when she tried to get her new drivers license. She drew a piece of bacon on the line for her signature. The clerk wouldnt accept it.
But she said that is her signature no different from some of the illegible ones other people use. Besides, they accepted the signature at the bank. She may have to compromise a bit and just sign her name.
This started out as a column about that name. That is still at the crux of things, but after getting to know Pussycat at least a little, it has also become a column about conformity, the price of being different and about fitting in, or not fitting in, in central Illinois. Its also about love.
Love is what brought Pussycat here from Chicago, where she was living after leaving California. But then she met an apprentice pipefitter from Pawnee. Love will bring someone like Pussycat to someplace like Pawnee.
Pussycat wouldnt be there if she hadnt met Jared Weedman, the aforementioned apprentice pipe fitter.
He prefers to go by the name Biggles, by the way, though he has not legally changed it. Biggles is James Bigglesworth a fictional pilot and adventurer created by Capt. W. E. Johns. There are about 100 Biggles books, written from the 1930s to the 1960s, until Johns death, and Jared/Biggles is a fan.
After nearly a year in central Illinois, Pussycat still asks herself sometimes what she is doing here.
It has taken some adjusting, she says. In California, someone can walk down the street with firecrackers going off in her hair, and people will just say, Oh, there goes another art student.
She has not connected with the Springfield art community. Instead, she is looking toward St. Louis.
Pussycat says its an interesting paradox in her personality that she doesnt really like attention (she chose not to have her picture taken for this because she doesnt want people bugging her), but, on the other hand, she changed her name to Pussycat Doppelganger. I believe an artist has to be at least a bit of an attention seeker; otherwise, the Mona Lisa would have been put in a closet somewhere in Italy.
Pussycat describes the first 16 years of her life as pretty rough. Her mom left early. She never knew her dad. They met once, but didnt connect on any level.
I just wanted to meet him, she says. I thought it would do something or would be good for me on some level. Im glad I did it.
On the knuckles of her right hand she has the word mum tattooed. On her left hand is pop.
I did that to remind myself that I have parents, she says.
She was raised by her aunt, who is now in her 80s. The aunt knows about the name change, but has told her niece that, to her, she will always be Jennifer. Pussycat is OK with that.
She is just one of many who dont feel like they fit in. Some of them are young people struggling to find their place. Others are free spirits who cause friction and raise eyebrows in a conservative, Midwestern area such as ours.
But like that old sage Willie Nelson, another free spirit who bucked the establishment, once put it: They aint wrong, theyre just different.