Entries Tagged 'Homelife' ↓

A year ago today, my father passed. The grieving that I thought I had done prior to his death as Alzheimer’s disease slowly stole him from us, continued over the past year and today I find myself just going through the motions. Swimming in wet cement, I like to call it. Functional, but just barely. Later today, my mother and one of my older brothers and I will iChat, our new favorite way to stay in touch. I’ll communicate the old fashioned way by telephone with other brothers who don’t have that capability.

Over Thanksgiving, I walked around my hometown and took pictures. On days like today I find myself thinking about home a lot, the physical/geographical as well as spiritual/psychological. I don’t think I have felt at home for many years now.

I found out purely by accident that an interview I did awhile back has been published in the October issue of A&U Magazine. The article was about the Black gay blogger campaign in response to the inclusion of certain homophobic Jamaican dancehall acts in an AIDS awareness concert planned for last summer. Unfortunately their website doesn’t have the article. I only learned of it when a former co-worker told me she saw it.

Similarly, I have reason to believe I am listed somewhere in Nyansapo, the publication of the National Black Justice Coalition. They requested a picture of me quite awhile back, but I have not seen anything. If anyone knows, please let me know.

It has come to my attention that this blog has been sorely lacking in entries of a personal nature. Scroll down and you can see I’ve been playing reporter for the last month or so, covering celebrity comings and goings, politics, local news, sports, movie and theatre reviews, but nothing having to do with things going on in my own life.

Well, there’s a reason for that. There ain’t a helluva lot going on in my life right now. Single, middle-aged, unemployed. This ain’t Sex and the City. I spend my days surfing the web for jobs and sending out resumes, taking occasional breaks to go to the gym, then coming home to make dinner, watch tv and websurf. That’s pretty much been it for weeks now. With the daylight savings time shift, it gets dark early and that makes things pretty gloomy. A very unglamorous life.

I’ve gotten to hang out with a couple of blogger friends who have visited from Atlanta recently (at separate times). Good people, both of them and great to see them face-to-face.

Yesterday, I was contracted to conduct a training for my former employer. It went well, I guess. If it didn’t I don’t really care. It’s over and now I just wait for the check to come. For the five years I was employed there, I trained staff of other agencies in a variety of topics, but the one I had to do yesterday was one I had not done before, so it required me to research and write a new curriculum just for this one time event. Frankly that was far more work than I cared to do and it was agony having to do it. I didn’t finish my outline until the night before although I had about two months to prepare. I just wasn’t feeling it.

Then, going back to the old shop I find things haven’t gotten any better. A new group of my former co-workers have been told they will be out of work at the end of February, and those who remain are wisely looking. What once was a great place to work is now a mere shell of its former self. Believe me when I tell you, this was the perfect job for me. It was good work that I was good at, a supportive environment, very accommodating hours—we NEVER worked evenings and weekends unless we wanted to—which allowed me free time to do all the other things I enjoy. A good salary and generous benefits too.

Then the asshole-in-chief launched the country into a totally unnecessary war in Iraq, and this social service agency which got 80% of it’s funding from the federal government, saw that money siphoned from the federal budget to support the ballooning war effort. Cuts, cuts, and more cuts. If there is any question as to the correlation between who is in office, federal spending priorities and their impact on real people at the grassroots level, look no further than this example. Its not about me being unemployed, it’s about the loss of services to our clients that was the end result.

Rant off. Thank you for letting me share.

I am so doubtful of finding a job like that ever again. I see lots of positions for which I am qualified, but then there’s the line “occasional evenings and weekends” or “some travel involved.” I think not. I really don’t care to work that hard. I am soooo not trying to be in somebody’s office until 8:00 doing paperwork every night.

My resume would suggest I should be management level. Been there, done that, don’t need to do it again. I don’t need a title or a big office or lots of responsibility. I am not the “driven” type when it comes to working for someone else. Forty hours a week, clock out at 5:00, save time to do my stuff. A good salary—I don’t need a lot—but comprehensive health benefits, so I can continue to see the battery of health specialists I used to keep on retainer. Such jobs are hard to find, unfortunately, but I keep looking.

I’ll be doing Thanksgiving back upstate with the family, as I always do. I don’t have to. I want to. Family, food and football, is what that holiday is all about, as far as I’m concerned. I suspect I’ll have some role in making dinner, although I don’t know to what extent, and will pack my knives and recipes for the trip.

I’ve got a secret I haven’t shared with very many people. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, I guess. It’s part of who I am. It’s just that when I try to talk about it, I get strange looks from people who can’t understand how I could possibly be one of them. But silence = death and I can be silent no more. It’s time to come out of the closet.

I’m a frustrated outdoorsman. Even though I haven’t had a chance to do much of it in recent years, I’m into camping, fishing, and I have a burning desire to try hunting. I have been skydiving and don’t rule out other outdoor activities either. There, I’ve said it.

I love peace and quiet, the serenity of being surrounded by trees, smelling fresh air and feeling dirt under my feet. When you live in the most urban of urban jungles, New York, getting in touch with nature means sunning yourself in Central Park. Honey, that ain’t nature.

No, I’m talking about going somewhere where your cellphone won’t get a signal. Where there aren’t one hundred thousand other people with the same idea. Some place where all you hear are the sounds of birds and insects, and at night the only light comes from the moon, if the sky is clear.

I’m an upstate New Yorker by birth, and even though I grew up in a small city, we were close enough to wilderness to go camping in the summer as kids. Dad took us fishing in lakes and streams and when I got older, we also went deep-sea fishing for blues off Long Island Sound. That was some of the most fun I’ve ever had.

From time to time I’ve asked my brothers if they were interested in going fishing and maybe getting their kids involved, you know, kinda trying to pass along the experiences we had with our Dad. But to date nothing has ever happened.

Something Keith wrote a few weeks ago rekindled my thinking on this topic. In high school, I was on the football and track teams and while I won’t pretend I was a great athlete, playing sports had me in the best physical condition of my life. I now get to the gym several times a week and while I’m in great shape for my age, frankly I’m bored by the workouts. In high school just the regular routine of practice and competition kept me in shape. It was a workout for a specific purpose. What I need, and want now, is a focus to my physical activities.

New York City offers a lot of diversions, but they’re all “city” things; theatre, restaurants, museums, shopping, etc. All things I enjoy, but I’m also drawn to less common activities and unafraid to be the odd man out. Growing up, I was the lone Black kid who knew anything about ice hockey.

Now I find myself fascinated by ESPN Outdoors and the hunting shows on OLN. I’m on the mailing lists for several catalogs. I read Field and Stream and get emails from bike manufacturers. While some people dream of exotic trips to Paris or the next Black Pride event, my fantasy vacation involves bowhunting for whitetail or sitting in a marsh awaiting a flock of southern migrating geese or maybe getting a backpack and a bike and traveling across country.

But any time you come out, you’re left wondering if you’re all alone, and this is no exception. I’ve been told my whole life Black people aren’t supposed to do such and such (usually by other Black people), and certainly Black gay men don’t do physical or athletic things (not unless we’re dancing or naked). Thinking outside boxes of our own creation is scary for some. Thus finding community around my interests remains a challenge.

Today is my first official day of unemployment. Last Friday was my last day at work although I was notified of the inevitable about six weeks ago. Had I been able to stay, Monday and Tuesday were to be days off for the July 4th holiday, so I’m counting this as the official start of the next phase of my life, although there is no rational reason for me to split hairs like that.

Unlike two times previously, this was a downsizing not a firing. In the past, I usually grew tired of the job and started pissing people off, or joined the losing faction in an office turf war, and got my ass canned.

But they actually liked me and I liked the job. It was purely a financial decision. At a nonprofit agency that receives 80 percent or more of its funding from the federal government–the same federal government that prefers to siphon off money from domestic programs that help those most in need in order to fuel an open-ended, unnecessary and unjust war in Iraq, putting more money into the outstretched hands of already rich defense contractors—this downsizing was precipitated by ever-shrinking financial resources. So that the company can remain solvent and at least help some people, albeit with less staff, you lay off people. I’m not complaining, I’m just reminding you that there is a mid-term election in November.

In any event, I now no longer have to get up early and fight hordes of New Yorkers for a seat on the subway every morning. I’m not altogether unhappy about that. I was able to file for unemployment the other day online. Sixteen years ago, when I got laid off the first time, you had to go in person to the Department of Labor, file papers, sit through an orientation and then once a week drop into the office to prove you were actually looking for work. Time consuming and a bit humiliating. Now, it’s all done online. The Internet is truly a gift from God.

I can also search a gazillion job sites online, or better yet, use search agents to have lists of available positions from a number of industries and companies emailed to me daily. They should call it “job surfing” not job searching.

As much as I’d love to sit around and do very little, this time I know I need to find something sooner rather than later. While I feel that for the past five years I’ve been a creative type trapped in a 9-5 office job, I also know a regular salary and company-paid health benefits was a beautiful thing. Especially the health benefits. I’m still covered for the next two months, but I don’t want any gaps. At my age, it’s great to be able to see a doctor whenever I want.

But I’m not going to rush into the next situation. This last position kind of spoiled me because there were many perks that I will now need to see in a future job or I’m just not interested. I am flexible about location and even open to leaving New York City, although I’ll most likely stay somewhere in the northeast or mid-Atlantic states. I’m not feeling the Red States however. I don’t like living anywhere where my very existence can be legislated away by a few overzealous Right Wingnuts.

I knew my life was going too well lately.

I arrived at work this morning and my supervisor called me into her office. My position is being eliminated. We’ve simply run out of money to keep me. Others will have similar conversations with their supervisors throughout today. A large grant we were counting on didn’t come through and we’ve been awaiting money from a large donor specifically for my program, which thus far has not come through and even if it does, will probably be earmarked for more urgent needs. So by the end of June I will be out of a job.

On to plan B….whatever the hell that is.