2022-09-09-2316Z


Went to the DMV today, to finish the address change begun weeks ago, and may have finally succeeded. Here is the saga, as best as I can put it together from notes and emails: on or about July 13, 2022, I resolved to change my legal address to a "general delivery" address, for personal reasons. So, I filled out the online form for the California DMV. There was an option for homeless people to put a physical location plus a mailing address, so I put "Putnam Plaza" for the former and "General Delivery" for the latter. It seemed to accept it, but a few days later I checked, and the DMV had rejected the address change but the secretary of state (voter registration) had accepted it, changing "Putnam Plaza" to "1 Petaluma Boulevard South".

The DMV said, when I checked the status on their webpage, that to continue I'd have to fill out a paper DMV14 form and mail it in. So I did, on July 18th, as evidenced by my Staples receipt where I had printed the form.

On August 8, I received my voter registration card at the Post Office.

I kept checking the post office, week after week, every Friday or thereabouts for news from the DMV, either telling me I was successful, or at least telling me what the problem was. Crickets.

So today, I schlepped out to the office, made an appointment, waited in line, and filled out all the address change info again into their computer. Waited a second time to see an agent, had to assert that everything in the change order was truthful... I said that the new physical address (1 Petaluma Blvd. So.) was fictional, provided by the voter registration folks, but then clicked through anyway. He gave me a temporary license with the general delivery address, and said I should get the new card in the mail within 2 weeks.

So California, that state so welcoming of the homeless, makes you perjure yourself to get an updated drivers license. Wonder how this will play out next time a cop decides to harass me for some bullshit violation of an obscure or silly regulation.

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last updated 2022-09-09 19:29:15. served from tektonic.jcomeau.com