All grow'd up

So, more than a year since my last post. Whoops.

(I initially referred to this post as an "entry." Goes to show that I'm still thinking about this as a diary. Oof...gays, forever teenage girls.)

The funny thing is, last year, I wrote more than ever before. I started the year working and writing at least one article for a newsletter, every day of the work week. Then I changed jobs and now I've been writing reports and industry trend pieces. I also took several writing classes that I like to think improved my writing...

Maybe not.

I've been working on fiction, which is new for me, but I like it. By working, I mean I wrote about 12,000 words last fall and haven't touched it in nearly two months. I'll get to it -- I still like the idea and the premise works.

I'm determined to see more music this year. I totally fell out of the loop as far as live music goes, and I have no excuse. I live in New York F'ing City. There are great bands here every week, a lot of venues within walking distance to my apartment and tons of opportunities beyond. No excuse!

So I guess this is sort of three resolutions for 2013: continue to improve my writing, work on my fiction and see more live music.

Also, could use more discipline...or not.

I stand with Occupy Wall Street

I am one of the lucky ones...I have a job that allows me to stay within the repayment terms of my student loans. I pay my bills on time, every month, and haven't missed a payment to Citibank, Sallie Mae and other responsibilities like credit cards, rent and utilities. However, the thought of my graduated repayment plan kicking in scares me because I'm already living on a shoestring. I take responsibility for signing the dotted line on my loans and taking part in the Federal Student Aid program through the US Department of Education, and will continue to make sacrifices to pay back my loans.

Three years ago, Citibank and other institutions like them were able to receive a government hand out in the billions when a profit-seeking business turned into greed, packaging known toxic assets and selling them back to us, their customers. When toxic assets went bust and trillions of dollars evaporated from the economy, millions of people saw their savings, homes and livelihoods decimated, or worse.

They bought that hand out with lobbyists and lawyers in Washington that we, their customers, paid for - and they're doing it again, with student loans.

What happens when student loan backed securities go bust because a second recession wipes out the lucky ones, the ones that are still employed? What happens when, because we lost the jobs we studied so long to be qualified for, we can no longer pay the interest, let alone the principal, on the loans?

Who gets the hand out then?

Even though I have to stay in my office and work to keep my job to continue to meet my responsibilities, I stand with Occupy Wall Street. There are fringe elements out there, yes, but don't let the media, all media, fool you. The bulk of the people there are just like you and me. And unfortunately, we can't afford the well connected lobbyists in Washington. But we can be heard.

Puppy (mill) cam

 

I'm all for cute puppy cams - but really? Google is allowing puppy sale ads? Damn you, puppy mills, for embracing online advertising! Must you sour everything with your evil!!

Anthro-art

Earlier this week, The New Yorker published a piece on Irving Penn's new display over at the Pace/MacGill Gallery entitled Archaeology.

The stark contrasts of the ordinary objects that he's compiled with the bones of animals (including that one known as the human animal) are both mundane and fantastic, and while these are still photographs they come alive with the shadows. I think that my favorite part is the dust or rust that settles around the objects, giving them an untouched feeling...as if he stumbled upon the placement of the objects as is.

I never thought I'd be the one to say this particular phrase, but anyone want to go stroll the galleries?

Antisocial networks?

The commodification of sex in Manhattan is a truth of the place. Put so many people on a tiny island and some aspects of life just become...expected.

Nowhere is this as true as with gay men.

But when online hook-up websites (Manhunt, Grindr, craigslist, findfred...the list goes on) make finding sex as easy as ordering take out and become normalized, it stunts the development of healthy sexuality as a whole.

Maybe it is the anthropologist in me talking, but with the availability of sex 24/7, the proclivity of gay men toward multiple partners, rising drug use and the arrival of a new generation of millennials that grew up during the Bush years where abstinence only sex education programs deprived them of the importance of safe sex, there is a scary convergence of dangerous components out there that all point to the rise of sexually transmitted diseases.

Add to the fact that most of the men that are out there are emotionally undeveloped? Prospects are not so good.

Ugh. Talk about depressing... how is a single gay man supposed to navigate this minefield?

Very carefully.