The World is Not Kind to Nomads

I lived in Los Angeles for my undergraduate degree from 1998-2003, living in a new apartment roughly every year. Then I moved to New York and stayed in an apartment for a year, with X moving in at 6 months. Then we moved to another apartment for 2 years (the longest time in one place!) then we moved around the corner to another apartment for 9 months.

Then I moved to Yonkers for 9 months and X moved to Boston for 9 months (for our respective graduate degrees). After our first semesters, we married in California and then went back to our own cities. The following summer we lived in Berkeley together for 3 months. Then we both moved to Cambridge, MA for 9 months (I commuted one night a week to NYC for my classes).

Now we have *moved* to San Francisco for, hopefully, many years to come. We are technically homeless, staying with my parents and, for a few days, a hotel until we can sign a lease (hopefully this coming Wednesday) and move into our new apartment.

I say all this so you can see that over the last few years I have been nomadic. I've almost always had a permanent address, but I've moved from state to state constantly. Guess what? The western world HATES this.

Phone, cable, banks, credit cards - they hate it when you move from one state to another, especially if you aren't willing to commit. I have temporarily forwarded my mail with a start and end date back when we were taking the summer off before grad school to travel. Yet my credit card companies changed my billing address to the forwarded address without telling me. I still receive junk mail there. Sorry X's mom. When I wanted to make changes to my bank account (opened in LA, but being used in Yonkers) I was told it would be easiest to close my account and open a new one in New York. "But I'm only here until May! And then who knows where I'm going." Apparently many banks operate their regions almost as different companies. Get with the program, banks. Americans move around. Many of us, my generation especially, don't stick to one state for long. I may always be a Californian at heart, but I can live anywhere.

It's always been a long complicated story to tell confused people at the other end of customer service lines. And it's always been a big pain in the butt. I know my lifestyle really messes up the voting system in this country. I am usually not in the same state when the vote comes around as I was when I registered. So most people like me only vote for "important" things (i.e. the president). We don't know anything about the state elections. But our vote probably won't count anyway because chances are with the moving around, some technical difficulty will invalidate our vote. (I can't remember where I've last registered to vote, and I can't remember my address two moves ago back when I did register).

Some agencies get this nomadic thing. As far as I know California and New York DMVs offer drivers licenses with out of state addresses. My NY license has a MA address on it. I've seen a California license with a NY address. I nearly kissed the DMV person when they told me it was possible. That maybe I could actually get my license renewed just like normal even though I'd moved to MA. That I didn't have to go through the process of getting a new MA license that I'd have to bring to CA. The only thing that kept me from planting a big wet one on the DMV person was that we were talking to each other over the phone. Whew. I love you NY DMV. Never thought I'd say that.

The latest disaster was getting an iPhone. I won't discuss the heart-breaking 6 hour line we were told would only take 2 hours. Or the idiot Apple server-crash. Or the fact that AT&T needs to be waaaaay more flexible with the process (our Apple rep selling us the phones said he hasn't had an activation go smoothly since his first customer with the first 3G iPhone he sold). There were no back-ups for server issues (i.e. a paper log we could fill out so they could activate us later); no alternatives for problems. Arrgghh. But that's not even the most frustrating part.

We were staying with my parents in Modesto. Our mail was being forwarded there. But we were looking at apartments in San Francisco. The cities are roughly a 90 minute drive apart (with no traffic). X is already working in Berkeley. So, one day after work and an apartment search, we went to Apple in Emeryville to buy the new 3G iPhones. There were A LOT of issues. We took a claim tag (after standing in line for 6 hours) and came back the next day.

They couldn't port our phone numbers from Sprint and Verizon. They kept trying. For 90 minutes. Phone calls with Sprint and Verizon verified it was AT&T's issue. In order to get out of the store with the phones we'd waited in line for 6 hours the day before and now drove 2 hours back out for on a Saturday, we had to accept two new phone numbers. AT&T claimed we could port our old phone numbers over the phone easily and free of charge on Monday.

Here's where the nomadic problem lies: the numbers we wanted to port, our phone numbers, the ones all our contacts use when they want to call us, they are New York - Manhattan - phone numbers. Our billing address is still in Cambridge. And we live in San Francisco. Theoretically.

We walked out of the store with Boston phone numbers because of our billing address. Monday, I called AT&T and was told that they couldn't port a New York number onto a SIM card designated as a Boston SIM card. Hm, ok. I kept my fat mouth shut about San Francisco. Why drag California into this? Let's just leave it between Boston and New York. They're used to duking it out anyway.

me: "Sooo, I need a new SIM card?"
AT&T: "Yep."
me: "Ok, how do I get that?"
AT&T: "I can mail it to you."
me: "Great. You mean to my billing address?"
AT&T: "Yeah."
me: "Um, so there's one more thing I haven't mentioned..."

I said I was on vacation with my parents in California. Not technically a lie. I gave them my parents' address for the SIM cards. As soon as we get the cards we call AT&T and activate them. Then we port our old numbers onto them. Ok, fine. One more snag...

AT&T: "We have to issue you new New York numbers in order to send you New York SIM cards. Then you can port your old New York numbers over."
me: "So this is just another temporary phone number?"
AT&T: "Right."
me: "Ok."
AT&T: "So if you could just give me your New York address..."
me: "My what?"
AT&T: "We can't issue you a New York phone number without a New York address."
me: "But I don't live in New York anymore."
AT&T: "You don't have to live there." (hint, hint)
me: "What?" (not getting the hint)
AT&T: "We just have to put down an address for 'primary use.' This doesn't have to be your residence. It doesn't have to be your billing address. We won't send anything there."
me: "Gotcha. Ok, here's one, ..." (opening up my address book on the computer).

And so I gave them my friend's address. In Brooklyn. I'll have to let him know, just in case. Just in case some AT&T people show up at his door asking if a Captain Apricot makes a lot of phone calls there.

So hopefully the problem is solved. I can change my billing address online, later.

I just wish it were easier to be a "citizen of the world." No, you know what? I'm not even asking that. I just want to be a "citizen of the US." I know our country's history and why the states operate the way they do and why that's important. I understand that companies have to operate sometimes within different state laws and that it is easier for them to cut up into territories. I know that cell phone towers are placed in the physical world, not the metaphorical one I'd like to live in. But I just wish it were easier. Like, maybe we could all get SecondLife addresses and use those, no matter where we live. Or maybe our cell phone numbers could be more important than our physical addresses. Of course then if we chose not to pay our bills we could never be found...

But I'm planning on staying in this next apartment for over a year. Can you believe it? And X and I may even buy a house one day. Who knows? I might be actually settling down.

Sending out love and sympathy to nomads everywhere,
Your humble friend from outer space,
Captain Apricot