My current passport expires in August, which—in this fakakhta world—means it’s functionally useless, because many countries won’t accept your entry if your passport has less than half a year to go before expiry. So last month I dredged around to see what’s necessary to renew online.
It was interesting to me to discover that—as long as it
essentially fits the frame—you can submit a selfie for your photo. JPG, TIF,
PNG—US State Department is happy to take them all. And since all the usual
suspects charge between $10-$15 for hard copies and extra for digital (??), I
thought, well—I can do that for free.
I would have submitted the photo that professional photographers
shot for my company badge seven years ago, but I was wearing glasses in it, and
they are strenglich verboten.
I hesitated on the declaration of hair color—I mean, it’s
currently pink, but it will change throughout the year to blue, green and
whatever else strikes my fancy. These days, you don’t know what’s going to get
you disqualified from citizenship.
Even though you put in the number of the expiring passport
at the beginning of the process, they don’t auto-fill for you, so you have to
go through the whole megillah, just like you’re a first-timer. That was
annoying. But I got it all together, uploaded the photo, handed over $130 in
Amex and hit submit.
That was 2 February and I was given a prospective turnaround
date of 21 March, because processing.
Imagine my surprise, then, to open a USPS Priority Mail
envelope yesterday and find this:
Yippee!
I am super grateful on many levels.
The process worked, and even delivered ahead of schedule. Way
ahead.
So far, I apparently haven’t been put on any Degraded Citizenship lists. I
can leave the country.
I went through all the pages—there’s no photo of that
asshole in the Oval Office on any of them.
©2026 Bas Bleu
