Home, away from Home, away from my old Home, away from a Permanent Residence.

Technically, I've lived twice in Appalachia. Once in Kentucky - well, actually over the line in Virginia - and once in Nova Scotia. I don't mention any of this on government forms.

In classic North American culture you're born in a town, grow up there, get married, have kids, and the cycle continues. It's all predictable and peaceful, unless you're living in Yellowstone, in Montana, in which case you also wind up killing tons of people.

(Note also, that Yellowstone National Park is mostly in Wyoming, not Montana.)

That image of people's lives is something of the past, and really doesn't fit a world of travel, airplanes, and careers that take you from one country to the other. People don't just stay in one place any longer.

If you've travelled and lived between countries, you'll know what I'm talking about. Forms that ask for your address. Or your "permanent" address. Or your home address.

Forms that assume that you came from one place, and after spending some time at work or school will return there. Forms that assume - demand! - that you have a literal, physical mailbox that they can send a letter to.

This is why we now have an address in Alençon, in France...
That forwards mail to an address in Liverpool, Nova Scotia...
That forwards mail to an address in Vancouver, British Columbia...
That forwards mail to an address in Cambridge, England.

And why we're now trying desperately to answer Cambridge University's request for our "Permanent address."

Because, in all honesty, right now we don't have one.

(And of course, once again, those charming American forms that insist that an address from anywhere on the planet must have a five digit Zip Code and name a State.)

Once again developers, if you're designing a form, please take five minutes to step back, think, and ask "But what if...?" What if that person on the World Wide Web is in Pakistan, or Germany, or at the Vatican? What if they've been travelling for the last year, and don't have an actual fixed address? What if e-mail is the best way to contact them, no matter what?

Think about how your demand that someone provides a physical mailing address might also mean that they need to pay $100 or $350 a year to have envelopes forwarded from one place to another.