Woman Without A Country

Having just about dispatched the necessary receipts to the auditor, I'm reminded of a brilliant Robbie Fulks post from...well before there were such a thing as "posts" but you'll get a lot more out of reading what he has to say about talking to the taxman than these pathetic ramblings here. I'm not even sure why I feel so compelled to write again, just one day later - there's probably something else I'm avoiding doing. Or it's some kind of desperate need for attention. After all, I haven't been on stage in an entire week.

I'm on to the next drama now, which is that I had to send my passport off to the American Embassy in Paris. It's pretty wrenching, being so far apart from it. But the pages are all used up, as the last three immigration officers have mentioned to me. The American and British officials gave me stern warnings. The French officer at Charles De Gaulle waved my passport in the air and giggled "It's full!"

I need to get a new passport anyhow because the photo is almost ten years old and I've started getting those skeptical looks at check-in counters like "this can't possibly be you". Plus it expires in April. All this travelling lately has left me no time to do anything about it. But we're going back to England next week and I have to go for the quick fix of getting a few more pages added. This can supposedly be achieved in a few days, unlike the passport renewal which takes several weeks.

It's a little like being a special agent, holed up in a village in France, waiting for her new identity. Without a passport, I'm floating free. A woman without a country. It feels great. Unless I need to go somewhere.