The GMSMA program on cutting was excellent. Just wonderful. As good, I think,as a program can be. Informative, titilating (sp?), and intriguing. Mr. Strona was a phenomenal presenter. And, I met a very hot (as in gasket-blowing) whipping bottom boy who traveled all the way from Boston to attend the program. I hope he makes the trip again soon. And a very solicitious Puno (that's with a '~' over the 'n') was there. I like that man a lot.
So I've calmed down some. Although I don't doubt that I'll be having some visitations from the Demons of 4:30 a.m. sometime soon. The events of the day were more than enough to invite them in.
Here's what I'm thinking though. I have options.
Among the things that Boss Sunshine and I discussed was the possibility of me staying on and doing what I'm best at: issues and policy work. Perhaps I can do that on a part time basis, working 24 hours a week. And, I could see if I could pick up another job--bartending, or perhaps I could get a job at a certain Playground for Men--that could round out my take home pay.
Boss Sunshine also proposed that he would give me six weeks to find another job and I wouldn't have to come into the office. I could perhaps do that, get a job at the Playground for Men or elsewhere off the books, live frugally, and that plus unemployment and the off the books job could allow me to get by. And, with the free time, I could devote myself to finishing up the book I'm writing (almost at 110 pages!) and see about publication. That could give me some extra income, too.
And there's always the Bucks County option. The house is next door to my parents. It has two bedrooms and lots of light. In return for 'taking care of' my parents, I could possibly arrange to live there rent free and get some kind of a part time job somewhere. Largely, I would still be able to get into NYC several times a month to fulfil my GMSMA commitments. And, perhaps Bucks County isn't the wilderness absent of BDSM that I think it is. And, Center City Philadelphia (for what that's worth
In many respects, this could be the jumping off point that I need. What have I wanted to do for a long time is to have the time available to me to write. There could be that in spades. The problem is, I had this damn job-thing that kept me busy.
Frank Strona had an interesting aside during the program tonight. He mentioned the illusion we have of being in control of our lives.
Uh huh.
There's another sort of icky pragmatic aspect to this. My parents are very old. Their will is written so that my brother, my step-sister, and I receive equal shares of their estate. It's counting unhatched chickens (a serious stay in a nursing home could take most of it), but if I were to inherit something that would allow me to buy a condo in dear old Jersey City outright, I could get back into the Greater New York City Metropolitan Area and still not have to be burdened with a full time job in order to support myself if my mortgage was minimal.
The last time I was fired was one of the best things that ever happened to me. When I moved to NYC, I got a job working in the General Counsel's Office of Ernst & Young. As in, wear a tie every day, work sixty hour weeks (longer when a case I was working on went to trial), deal with lawyers all day long. It was awful. It was so wrong for me. I was doing a lot of volunteer work for the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. A job came open. I applied. I didn't get it. I wanted to throw myself off a bridge after that. Spending a lot of times thinking about doing work I enjoyed and then having that pearl snatched away from me made it all the more miserable. So, I started to care less and less about work. I joined a gym, and began going religiously. I took vacation. I made sure that I traveled at every opportunity with Ernst & Young footing the bill. Alas, in the economic downturn during the first Bush administration, there were staff cutbacks at Ernst & Young. One Friday afternoon, I was called into my supervisor's office. We didn't get along. She was talking, and I was sort of looking around the room distractedly. It was Friday afternoon. I wanted to finish up my work and get out of there and get my weekend going. Then, it dawned on me what was happening. There was a panic so brief that no chronometer devised by human hands could measure it. That was followed by profound relief: "I didn't have to come here on Monday!" I was filled with jubilation. It was over. The Governor had signed the pardon and I could get out of prison.
In the months that followed, I collected unemployment, got a consulting gig, did some of my best work for ACT UP, and had a blast. It was absolutely sublime. Eventually I found a job working for Boss Sunshine the first time around. That, of course, was one of the best jobs I've ever had. I did great stuff. Tangible stuff. Changing the law in New York City.
(Oh. By the way. Among the things I was responsible for. Several times lately, I've heard that possession of handcuffs is against the law in New York City. I don't think that's true. While I worked for Boss Sunshine back then, he was a member of the City Council. In a flurry of activity, the Council did a review of the criminal law statutes, getting rid of unnecessary and outdated laws. We all sat pouring over the criminal code, looking for things to eliminate. I ran across the handcuffs law. My thought at the time was more about the fact that handcuffs were employed not infrequently in civil disobedience... handcuffing yourself to some bureaucrat's desk when you occupied his or her office, for instance. That went down on my list. My boss raised it in the council, and another councilmember, who was gay but fairly conservative, and who represented the Lower East Side... let's call him Antonio-yay Agan-pay, rose up in righteous indignation and fulminated about my boss making handcuffs a gay issue because that was a sick thing to do. All the other members of the city council totally didn't get what he was going on about. What he was going on about was handcuffs bondage. Somebody had some issues. But, if memory serves, his attempt was unsuccessful, so possession of handcuffs was de-criminalized. Now, the tricky thing is that when something like that happens, the top brass at One Police Plaza don't exactly send a memo to all police officers letting them know that. In fact, few people outside of the room know about it. So, it is entirely possible to be arrested for handcuffs possession in NYC, but you wouldn't be prosecuted for that when it comes to trial. I'll check on that though.)
But anyway, it was a very good thing, and the start of many more good things.
In the meantime, if anyone hears of any job openings--and as I put it earlier tonight, I'd take a job with the transit authority hunting rats in the subway tunnels if I could thereby make my rent and car payment--do let me know.
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