Wednesday, May 22, 2019

pulled teeth & late passports

may day 2019 culminated in a midnight outdoor dance party in west philly. i placed my portable speaker inside the community lending library case which yielded shockingly excellent acoustics across the entrance of cedar park. earlier in the evening i had brought up things we were looking forward to and things we were fearing in the month ahead.

for me it was simple: i feared my upcoming dentist appointment to get a tooth pulled. and i looked forward to my trip to montreal later in the month for the 20th anniversary of the anarchist book fair.

as i sit at my bullshit job typing this, a lingering dull pain persists where my freak wisdom tooth had been growing out of the side of my gums. now it's just a healing wound. it has been nearly a week and yesterday i finally began eating with both sides of my mouth.

a different type of dull pain continues to persist this week as the calendar gets closer and closer to our departure date for montreal: the bureaucracy of the passport overlords. i made the fateful mistake of not expediting my application to renew. it has now been 4 weeks since my materials were shipped to a po box in philadelphia and i am still passport-less with less than 48 hours to go before my friends and i embark on our journey north.

i remain hopeful. but it has been a rollercoaster.

the past couple days i have received various updates on its status. first, that my new passport had been printed. and then that it was being shipped--hooray! but then...that the estimated arrival date was may 27th: a national holiday here in the states and the day we are planning on leaving montreal. i finally spoke to some humans on the phone who were eventually able to communicate the grand passport wizards that i needed it stat. so now i am getting periodic updates as my passports mysteriously departs from arizona on the long journey to my house in west philly.

the good news is that i didn't have to waste a bunch of additional money i don't have to get it rushed last minute. but now it's completely out of my control and i just anxiously wait.

fingers crossed!

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