Go Zelda!

So today I took my tour of Apex Technical Institute. There were 27 of us. Twenty-five African-American and Latino young men, two Latina young women, and me. Most of the crew was barely out of their teens, if they were out of their teens.

We saw the auto body shop. We saw the auto mechanics shop. We saw the HVAC (as in, Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) shop. And then we went to the fifth floor. Where the welding program is conducted. As we came off the elevator, there was this huge shelving unit thing on wheels made from sheets of diamond plate steel.

I got a hard on.

The whole floor had this smell of oxidation, like in the wake of a burst of electricity. It was noisy. In the 'classrooms,' figures wearing protective leather welding tunics and those helmets were bent over brilliant arcs of tungsten and acetylene.

I was mesmerised.

Welding is their most popular program. There's a wait list for the next session that starts on August 1st. Their placement rate is highest in the welding program. Welders are always in demand.

The welding program would run from October to May. The total cost is $14,000. I could get a $7,000 student loan to cover half of it. If my condo is sold before October 1st, I could probably pay the $7,000 balance from that, and support myself while I went to school.

I'm also thinking about looking into accredited welding programs in Pennsylvania. Maybe I could live with my parents (or find someone looking for a roommate) and go there more cheaply.

But I seriously want to be a welder.

After my tour of Apex, I had an iced latte, then went off to my session with my therapist. She was cautious. She pointed out that if I was rolling in money, it would be one thing to explore this by sinking $14,000 into it. But I'm very much not rolling in money. Thus, she didn't down the idea altogether, but she suggested that I talk to whoever I could about what it's like to be a welder.

Even though as she was speaking, I was re-writing my autobiography in my head, a version that ran along the lines of "The Story of the Early Life of the World's Greatest Welder," I'm going to follow her advice. I'm gonna talk to the guy that's making my cage, and they guy that did the metal work for my condo in Florida, and the guys at the iron works shop down the street. I'm not sure how receptive the cage maker will be to my questions. After all, he'll rightly perceive that I am up and coming competition. But hey, he claims that he was up to his eyeballs making collars and such, so perhaps there's plenty of work to go around.

But, in addition to collars and cages and wildly creative dungeon furniture, I have another idea in mind. What about high design furniture? Beds and tables and desks and chair and such? boy wonderful, the bazillionaire, had a bed made from steel I-beams. Out at IML, there was a vendor selling beds made out of steel I-beams, these outfitted for slings and bondage attachment points. Maybe steel will be the Next Big Thing. Somehow, I don't think that such thoughts were running through the minds of my fellow Apex Techinical Institute prospective students.

This all fits pretty nicely into my Five Year Plan. That's what I'd be doing out in the studio. And spending my nights writing. Out there on the farm. The farm with the house constructed of concrete and cold rolled steel. ("Clean up is a snatch!")

Okay. Okay okay okay. How quixotic is all of this?

Very.

But then again, how did Joe Wheeler get started making whips? I doubt young Joe paused while eating his PB&J sandwich and thought to himself, "When I grow up, I think I'll make whips for S/M afficionados the world over."

As a matter of fact, I know exactly how Joe Wheeler got started making whips. He went to work for scene-unfriendly David Morgan because the place was down the road from him and he needed a job. My plan is the Normandy Invasion by comparison.

Something occurs to me. Years and years ago, like ten of 'em, I was in the habit of writing porn. Not for publication, just for me.

I remember one of my stories. It involved a sort of artisan blacksmith as the main character. He lived in NYC. One night, on Christopher Street, he recognizes a hustler as the son of a neighbor of his mothers. He asks his mom about the boy, and learns that he's a runaway, and that his parents are deeply concerned. His mother asks if he would do what he could to salvage his young life. My smithy tracks the kid down, and finds out he's doing deperation hustling because he has developed a drug problem. Smithy takes the boy home, and for a while, everything is fine. Then the boy runs away from the smithy. (You can see where this is going.) Smithy again tracks the boy down, and again brings him home, but this time, forges a set of beautiful iron chains for the boy. The boy at first complains bitterly and threatens to have the cops on him first chance he gets, but comes to love his captor. And his chains.

Perhaps a wee bit esoteric for porn. (There was no sex involved, only captivity.) But it sure got me off. And that, after all, was why I was writing the stuff.

To the best of my recollection of the story, I have essentially become the man I described my smithy to be: tall, somewhat muscular, bushy facial hair, cigar smoker.

See??!!! Told ya!! I was always meant to be a welder; it just didn't dawn on me until the other day.

[Yo. Slow down. Breathe.]

I could also ask my father for the $7,000. He has it. And I think I could convince him of the merits of this endeavor. For example, he's never quite understood what I did for a living. Ever. I mean, when I was the Executive Director of the social services agency, he'd ask questions like, "So when you go to work, what do you do all day?"

Perhaps I've mentioned here the fact that my dad, who did a pretty good job of raising me--what with a rotating assortment of mothers and step-mothers and surrogate mothers--made one huge mistake. When I was a little boy, he did his best to dampen all of my career aspirations. For example, I went through a phase where I was fascinated by the real estate section of the Sunday papers. Some of the ads for apartments included floorplans. I was fascinated with floorplans. I would fill up entire pads of graph paper making floorplans. Comes the day when I tell dear old dad that when I grow up, I want to be an architect.

The response? "No no no. Architects are a dime a dozen, kid. You'll never make any money being an architect." Same with teacher, same with cop, same with paramedic, same--in fact, with surgeon.

And, in fact, for a while we owned a horse, and I remember being fascinated when the blacksmith would come by to shoe our horse. The blacksmith was a nice guy, and would show me and explain to me (I was about seven years old at the time) what he was doing. I'm pretty sure I said to my father that when I grew up I wanted to be a blacksmith. And I don't doubt that my father responded with something along the lines of, "Twenty years ago, everybody around here had horses. Now we're the only ones, and we've just got Sassy. Don't go into that. You'll never make any money with that."

So my dad raised a son who had no idea whatsoever what he wanted to be when he grew up.

Anyway. I've got to pack for the GMSMA Board Retreat tomorrow.

Oh. And basanos never showed. Mother fell and broke bones. I've pretty much been expecting something like this. Anyway, we'll see where it goes from here.

It's a pretty sure bet that tonight when I go to bed, I'll be dreaming of steel and inert gas welding.

Huh. Interesting. When I was coordinating the fashion show program that GMSMA did, I did an interview with David Samuel Menkes of David Samuel Menkes Custom Leatherwear. David sees himself as a tailor. That's his joy in life. By way of explanation, he told me that while he's drifting off to sleep, he's envisioning The Perfect Seam. When he said that, I immediately felt deeply envious.

Okay okay okay. Enough about welding.

Well, one more thing. Just one. A favorite moment from therapy today. I was saying to my therapist that another additional favorable aspect of being a welder was that it would get me laid...

"So what do you do for work?"
"I'm an assistant manager at Pottery Barn. How about you?"
"I'm a welder."

Bingo. We're in the sack.

My therapist pointed out that there were a lot of pissy queens out there who would look down their noses at a welder.

"Well," I said, "I'm not really into pissy queens. I'm into piss, but not pissy queens."

My sixty-ish female heterosexual therapist thought that was a hoot. That's why I love her.

I probably will have no opportunity to blog between now and Sunday night.

I'm reading Guy Kettlehack's book, 'Dancing Around the Volcano.' You should, too. That will be the perfect cure for your inevitable Singletails jones.

---