Clown Problem#14: My Last “24” Hours—The Longest One Yet.
What did my cousin say?
“Absurd.”
At 7AM, I tried to check my bank balance on my computer feeling a tad nervous. My computer asked for my security USB key and I snapped and I wondered: where is my pouch with my passport, COVID vaccine card, crypto key, AND security USB key?
Breathing in Rosa’s room, I had to orient myself.
First, I do not have a home.
Where is that pouch?
Second, I brought most of my belongings with me—somewhat fleeing the United States— after Mother’s Day 2021.
I saw my hard drives that I kept in it, okay.
Third, I have 195 dollars in my bank account and an IRA.
I found my black pouch with my passport in it that belonged to a bag that I sold before I got here.
My cousin Carmine’s wedding is in August. I asked Angela if I could stay with her for the summer so I could go. But then, Gennaro and co. were coming (today) and I had to completely move out.
I had sent one suitcase home with TERESA, which I thought was going on Monday to find out Friday, Saturday, Sunday—who knows all I do is work—that it was going home with her today. I felt bad, so I didn’t pack it right, not wanting it to be too heavy.
I found my folder with all my copies of my documents: my COVID tests, a copy of my vaccine card, etc. I had a photo on my phone. But would that suffice? I couldn’t log into my bank account, but I could just use my phone…I eyed it suspiciously.
I had changed my PayPal number to my mother’s number in LA…so if I got paid that way…I would be fine. I had to call them.
I didn’t want to have to take a train to NAPLES to then transfer to another to go to Teresa’s in Ottaviano to get my COVID vaccine card.
I had to pack anyway, so I might as well just take the deep dive, pulling out the gigantesque duffle suitcase out from under the bed to find more winter clothes that I wanted to.
I threw Adam Selman work out clothes on the bed with an aqua suit that the wise screenwriter foresaw in a meditation five years ago and a Christmas sweater.
But where is my COVID vaccination card?
Down the steps, I should be able to get a friggin’ digital copy. I had a copy of it so I had all the information…into google search: how do you get a digital… Apple Health? I do not know how to use this. i types vaccination and nothing came up. What was this? I went onto the NY official website…and I typed in my real information and I wasn’t in their records. I couldn’t get it. You see?
Did I have to call Gristedes now? This is ridiculous! I said. It’s a paper card! What’s official about it? I had to write “positiva COVID” with the date…and my negative test results also with the date.
Up the steps, I took a box and a backpack that I could have used to go to Paris, but I had to take most of my clothes as to not leave anything here, so I had to take the XXL suitcase.
I will come back the night before needing to leave for this wedding in one week where I will spend five days working in Ancona, squeezing in time with my cousins, to work before the wedding and enjoy myself then, since I have a job where I am in charge of creating all the content. Then, I will come back and have to find another lodging to able to return to my cousin’s house to finish out the month, but I hope not. I’ll have my paycheck by then, let’s hope, and celebrate the largest one I have ever received thus far.
Would I have to go to Teresa’s?
I grabbed my black pouch again with my passport and found the first vaccination card I had received—official—for my first vaccine.
Well. Good. I didn’t have to go to Teresa’s.
Down the stairs, I sat down with the copy of my second one and wrote the correct information onto the first one. It was even neater, a fresh card.
I wanted to call Brigitte in Paris to let her know I was coming, but I had to leave the house to do that It is nestled in the cliffs, so service is bad and she can’t hear me. She is in her nineties, though she is eternal.
Angela was cleaning the garden with Natale, the landscaper, washing down the stone.
I will return, I said.
My phone was just…not working when it usually gets service outside the gate.
Walking down this road with a vista of cliffs and sea…past jasmine bushes…wondering if maybe I needed to update my software. I walked back.
Across the patio, they were moving branches…I stepped over the hose. I updated my software, remembering I could Brigitte on Skype on my computer.
Down the stairs, I had a medium plastic bag filled with clothes probably made from recycled plastic, in some capacity, which is not recyclable. I could get rid of a couple things. I don’t know about work out clothes, who knows what was in there.
Is there a garbage area around here?
Yeah, they said, down the curving road, you know, the main one.
“I will return,” I said again.
I found one garbage bin up a side road with a limoncello grove for paint tools only. I felt bad. There were no garbage cans. I was trying to dial vodaphone to put more credit on my phone though I had a monthly plan. Was that my plan? I can’t call Brigitte on WhatsApp.
So, I decided to conduct an experiment since one of my characters has been making me pay attention to recycling systems for over a year.
Put it on the other side of that wall, in the bushes, it’s basically the same thing: when you get back, come back, and I bet you anything it will still be there.
So, I did.
Walking back up the road, past an old castello with a cedrat farm, I saw AVE MARIA in pink Bougainville next to a sign for gym.
Okay, so I had packed a small box and the backpack, and my large suitcase was on the floor away from the bed. I went downstairs to get my cousin to verify these two small items would be alright to store here…for this time: about 3 weeks.
She was hosing around the outdoor dining table. She went up the stairs without me and came down confused.
Well, I came up the stairs.
She verified that the large suitcase wasn’t staying with her, which it wasn’t. I was taking that.
With my box and backpack, we went downstairs and pulled out the drying rack—the cave was humid. We tucked my box and pack in the laundry closet.
She came out, adorable and laughing, that we had put my bright pink LL BEAN cord jacket with the dark colors, fading it, and we had done it again. We took it out of the washing machine. It was over anyway, and I found another online…but I can’t get it yet.
Do I want it? Wrists with elegant slack, she said that my pink jacket was prettier faded and I should get another color.
Opening my computer, I decided to start my job early, taking a glance at my book. I was happy where I was: headed towards the finish line.
Huh, I made a working copy of the google slides but I had already made one. Keep both. I didn’t want to touch the first one, just in case they wanted to reference it, and the other one, you never know: I tend to reference old drafts.
I went into google docs to work on a podcast about a subject that I don’t know that much about, but all information is available. At the bottom I made “my own little corner that other people are invited to,” but I know no one will notice it.
I went on FIGMA to look at some materials…zooming in and out…enjoying the intuitive nature of it but when I had tried to stick a post-it onto it they couldn’t see it because it was too small and I didn’t understand what the scale was.
I made a working copy of another google doc: “draft website rewrites.”
I had to call the DMV (on Skype). I have to renew my license in the fall, but I cannot log into the website to perform this task online, because my number has changed. They had to cancel my account and send in a paper request. I would receive an email in 10 days.
I signed up for a two-week free trial on Ancestry. com to supplement my research on the Ellis Island website looking for my grandparents to find out if they were naturalized or not. Or else, I can’t apply for citizenship, though they might not have known what they were doing since they didn’t speak English.
I wrote myself a note to remind myself to cancel before they charge me.
I went to the US government site as well—well, I would have to call the cemetery where they are buried to get their birth and death anniversaries as all my family documents got lost.
Can they do that? Can they give me, obviously with the last name, this information?
I did a guided meditation but not to meditate—to be able to write content about it, thus I was meditating on the meditation.
I took some time to finish the Feast of Santo Stefano in my book—minestra and basketball.
The internet in this house only works downstairs up to the kitchen and I had a meeting. The TV on, unable to ask them to turn it down, I had nowhere else to go.
I went into the laundry room the size of a closet because there was a door and it closed. Luckily, a shelf pulled out from the washing machine on top of the dryer. No wait, it’s the other way around. I took one of the white chairs by the stair and it was the perfect height.
They didn’t see the washing machines: they were towering above their faces on the screen: zoom, google meet, which one was it? We settled the different docs, my boss giving me confirmation to take the lead. All the same, who cares which doc becomes the doc? I could delete any doc. But at the time, “I will copy and paste the latest draft back in the first one.” Oh, version history. That’s right.
My boss wanted to have a meeting afterwards…emerging from the laundry room—no special remarks from my cousin. Finished Meri?
Once more, I said, to my cousin.
Back in the laundry closet, the recycling system for the house behind me, one of my characters was still pointing out how ludicrous this system was…
My boss, against the laundry machine, said she really liked my work. She was happy to have me onboard, which I appreciated hearing. Good. I said. I was enjoying it.
Coming out of the laundry room once again, I was thinking ahead since I had a meeting with her the next day.
I texted my friend who I was staying with in Paris: Koso, for it was cheaper to fly to Paris and stay for free, and since I had to leave, I figured it would be the moment to see my friend.
“Send me your Wi-Fi information,” because I was going to roll in and have to get myself set-up quickly. She is in Albania, too, without service, so I was giving her time to get back to me.
“I don’t have Wi-Fi,” at 10:30 PM, she wrote.
Okay. I just got this job.
I am not exactly going to Paris to “see people” and the “sights.” I am going to work, complete my book, and see Brigitte, specifically, take walks, be in my own space, and hope my paycheck comes through so I can buy a dress and a modest swimsuit.
I don’t know if I can go—my cousin came to the table as I was trying to simply get to the solution. How does she not have WI-FI? Doesn’t she know where to go, don’t you know others? Sure, calling people at 8 AM—hey, I’m coming to town with meetings and nothing else to do but write? Can I stay with you?
I was there for a week.
I texted Cerese (a plastic environmentalist) in Aquila at 11 to say that I didn’t know what to do and could I possibly stay with her? I deleted it, uh…I have no money. Okay. Who am I going to ask, I don’t want to. I’m about to get this paycheck.
On the computer, I searched for a way to get WI-FI in Paris, the times that cafes close (as many of my meetings occur at night) and thank you, to the disrupters, for at Garnier OPERA, there was a start-up that rented portable Wi-Fi. I could reserve it online.
“Fine it was resolved,” my cousin said walking back to the TV.
How many days would I rent this for? I literally have no money. One of my characters told me to rent it for the whole time but I was scared.
Okay. Now, I had to inform my boss, my cousin bringing me blueberry digestif. Well, I got unexpected news but I already have solved the problem, though I cannot meet at that time. I was going to have to get internet the following morning, but I would see if I could work it out on my phone.
She changed the time.
I ran to Instagram because it is the surest way that people, it seems, will read your message. I asked Courtney Hoffman if I could take a little money from a fund that she was kind enough to offer me as I have inspired a character on a TV show that she is developing. I, in fictional form, contend with whether or not my mother whose real nick name is Dr. J is really a spy, if I am really a spy.
I would be asking if I weren’t truly in a bind. I will Venmo it back as soon as I get my paycheck. It was money to use for the next step in my book, which I really appreciated. It made me feel better, because it wasn’t anyone’s money.
“We have to live by 7:45 or 8,” my cousin said, “would I be ready?”
My Albanian friend didn’t call me back—she was exhausted.
Up the stairs, I had my passport, my COVID vaccine card, the first one filled out with the contents of the second one, and all my documents, at least. I had checked in, deciding to pay 8 dollars to pick my seat.
I woke up at 6, feeling nervous and weird. I went to get my phone and it hadn’t charged because, this night, of course, the plug had gotten loose in the socket.
Down the the steps, I was up first, as I usually am. I made the coffee, opened the doors, and said hi to Nettuno. I got to work on my draft, a little—The Feast of Santo Stefano known officially as The Day of Leftovers. Basketball was on the television this day.
Angela came down looking pouty and sensual…unassuming…walking to the kitchen.
I had an hour, the time we were leaving having been pushed to 8:30, which I was expecting. I showered, brushed my teeth, and put on my new chokers; razor thin blue and gold beads, I zipped up my large suitcase, picked it up—not heavy—and carried it down the steps.
“You forgot your shoes on the steps,” Angela said.
Rosa came to pick us up. We were having cafe, and then, we weren’t, so I had to hurry along suddenly. They had to prepare for the wedding.
In picking up my computer case, heading for my carry-on, my old agenda jacket that I kept because I liked the print of confetti fell to the floor.
Picking it up, my COVID vaccine card was tucked in the fold: the second one I got. I remembered I did that. I was one step ahead of myself. All the same, I was definitely going to Teresa’s.
In the fiat, they had to drop me off before the piazza because they were making a right. We discussed my friend Koso, no-Wi-Fi, that I will need to work for the five days that I am at Carmine’s wedding, besides the day, because I have “an important” amount of work to do.
But will they remember?
I had to throw away a lone sock that I had stuck in my pocket, rolling the suitcase towards the trash can, and Rosa told me that the piazza was in the other direction, though I have spent much time here.
I threw away the sock.
I was aware.
Picking up my suitcase now at baggage claim in Paris, my work sent me another task to complete, and I have typed this story from the bus through the airport, the plane ride, and now, it’s time to buy a bus ticket as I am in Beauvais.
So, anyway, I walked to the cafe that knows me: VISIT BAR. They greeted me warmly, the bar man having inspired a character. I got my cappuccino and they served it to me for free, isn’t that kind? My bag was secure.
I opened up my computer to get to work.
Koso called at Visit Bar, the sweet server who took my bag herself wanted to know what Paris was like. She heard it was expensive, should I go? But how? I’ll leave you my number: go on Airbnb and just get a cheap place…go for a weekend, a few days, call it a rencontre. There are plenty of things to do for free like the Jardin Luxembourg.
In one spot, Koso and I could hear each other, one step more, and we couldn’t. Huh, I thought. I tried it again. We could talk because we were on WhatsApp. She was at the beach in Albania. Her neighbor has the key, but he doesn’t have WhatsApp, so she will call her other neighbor to let him know… I am there.
But then, I got a text that I just needed to buzz and let me know I am there. I had told Koso I would probably get there between 9-10 PM but I have to say, from this Navette, cruising to Paris…and it looks like I’ll get there just in time for my meeting with my boss.
“Did you just come from Marrakesh?”
My neighbor asked me in French.
And I am approaching Nation, thirty minutes until my meeting.