Back in February I posted a link to Don Peck’s article about the long unemployment crisis and the impact it’s likely to have on our country and our culture. It clicked with some long-floating anxieties, and, sure enough, in April, my company closed its virtual doors. The company gave me a little bit of severance, better than a slap in the face but not by much.

It had been a long time coming. Sometimes I look back and I’m surprised that we lasted as long as we did.

The job search was… both better and worse than I expected, really. I decided that I would submit one job application or sit for one job interview, every weekday, until I found a new position. Weekends and Fanime I kept for myself, and I did take one “vacation” day. Job searching took up about two hours out of every day, and interviews generally took between one and three, depending on how much time I had to spend getting there. It felt like a light search, but others tell me that it was actually pretty aggressive.

By the numbers, this comes out to:

Twenty-six job applications
Nine interviews at four companies
Two interviews canceled due to layoffs
One trans-continental flight

And, the payoff:

Two job offers.

One was about what you would expect from a post-layoff offer – a solid company full of nice people, about the same money and a much more troublesome commute – but I lucked out on the other. It’s going to take me out of the Bay Area, away from most of my friends and most of the things I know and love, but for my career, it’s a big enough step up that I don’t think I could have very well refused it.

From my very limited tour of the job market, it feels like there is work out there, and it’s not only possible to find a decent position, but it’s even possible to make the best of a layoff and come out somewhat ahead. Times are still hard, and it takes a lot of ground-pounding to find that work, but it’s out there.

I licked my lips, tasting the memory he’d left behind. “A couple times, just to try… but it was never like that.”

His eyes lit up at the compliment, and he leaned forward, whispering against my cheek. “You like me that much?”

“Maybe.” I closed my eyes again, letting myself nuzzle back and slip my hands around his waist. “Maybe you’re just the first boy I’ve kissed who wears strawberry lip gloss.”

I felt Rio dip his head, just a little, as he settled into my arms; I imagined him blushing through his smile. “I like strawberry! Most of the time it’s just for me. It’s just a little, and it’s clear!” He looked back out into the cafe to see if anyone else was near. “Well, except for the glitter.”

“It has glitter in it?”

“Uhm. Just a bit. You didn’t notice before.”

“I bet that leaves interesting smears.”

“It takes more than one date to find out.” He laughed and kissed me again, his touch just barely firmer than a breath. “I’m not sure we’ve had even that.”

Then, just like that, he was gone.

Unfortunately, this Sunday, I was not in the mood for an argument. Fanime is coming up and I am trying (again) to make progress on First and Last and Always, my long-in-coming Tybalt story. Sunday was the first really good chance I’ve had in almost a month to work on it, and this small, elderly Japanese lady was interrupting my efforts to write, well, gay magical catboy sex. I kept trying (and failing) to put sentences together in the back of my mind, and trying to keep the two thought-streams separate was… difficult, to say the least.

There didn’t seem to be a polite way to explain this to her. Does anyone out there have suggestions?

Amy Vanderbilt is curiously silent on this situation.

I suspect, much to my disappointment, that there are no plans for further issues. It’s been about a month since I emailed Anne, and I noticed that her contact information has been locked at the YaoiCon site.

This doesn’t mean much, if anything, for Tybalt’s future. The past two Anthologies have paired me with Tammy Lee, and I don’t think we have very good creative chemistry. Tybalt remains one of my favorite (if most demanding) characters, and I’m sure he’ll continue to slink into my writing life whenever he has a story to share.

For now, I’ve been sidetracked by an interesting little experiment (you can expect it in time for Christmas), and First and Last and Always will go back to the top of my stack once it’s done.

Unfortunately, the old links do not work anymore. Some of the most popular posts are linked below, but there are quite a lot of them and people link to them in strange ways sometimes. If you have been directed to this post because your link did not work, please excuse the inconvenience and find a working link below. Also, the person who sent you the broken link may not know it is broken. Please be kind and forward the information along, so that the Internet may get by without so many broken links.

Thank you!
~Catboy! =^.^=

Graveyard
Fake It
Sometimes, When You’re Sleeping
YaoiCon 2007: One Server’s Thoughts
If You Think Education Is Expensive…
Putting Money Where My Mouth Is
Lovers Die Together
The Tears of Anael
DreamFever
Intoxication
Wanting More
You Can’t Go Back to Eden
It Begins With A Kiss
Shut Up
Civilized Behavior: You’ve Heard of It, Yes?

If you are looking for a post not listed here, the search bar off to the left should be happy to help you.

I think she deserves the same chance. Really, I think that everyone deserves the same chance (that teaching urge is hard to forget), but my friend seems particularly important right now. She’s endearingly quirky and I believe she doesn’t give herself enough credit for how bright she is. Sometimes I wonder how she might change in the experience; I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t make the most of it, but how is anyone’s guess.

I’d like to meet that hypothetical future-self, whoever she might be. I bet she’d have a lot of interesting, compelling things to say.

It’s time for me to put some money where my mouth is.

This is my open gift to her, my promise before all of you. I hope you get to hold me to it.

Hi DeeDee,

Happy graduation, and happy upcoming birthday. Welcome to the start of your adult life.

I think you should go and try college for a semester. Try it on; see if it suits you; see if you can handle it. I think you’ll be surprised. It doesn’t really matter which; even community college is better than none, and you can always transfer up if you find it too easy. Just go full-time and give it your best shot. Keep in touch; let me know how you’re doing and ask if you need help.

If you can pull off that one semester, I’ll help you pay for it. After your finals are done, I’ll drive down to meet you, take you out to lunch, and write you out a check for three hundred and fifty dollars. Call it a delayed scholarship. If you go to a CSU it’s a good start; if you go to a community college, it pays for your tuition, fees, and bus pass, then gets you started on your books. You can use it to keep going, or pay off what you’ve done and stop. I believe in you that much, and that’s my gift to you.

You have one year.

Please don’t waste it.
-Adrian

The whole situation reminds me more than a little bit of the Massive Resistance policy that Virginia implemented for Brown v. Board of Education, and of Prince Edward County’s extreme steps in particular.

I don’t think I need to say much more than that.

Granted, I have other problems at the Folsom Street Fair, which is usually a stream of low-grade, distressingly insistent come-ons rather than single undignified acts of borderline sexual assault, but this is another story, for another day.

I first encountered this unfortunate circumstance at last year’s YaoiCon, a few days before this site opened. Friday afternoon, I was walking out back to a friend’s room to adjust my costume when someone grabbed me from behind and started hip-thrusting. It was really very uncivilized, and while someone on Constaff saw it and offered to revoke the person’s badge, I asked them to give only a first-last-and-only warning. People look forward to YaoiCon all year, and it’s easy to get caught up in the sheer vibrant enthusiasm of the convention. It didn’t feel like my place to ruin someone’s weekend only a few hours in. Under certain circumstances, a gentleman is obligated to forgive.

Random hugs are common at Fanime, among old friends, new friends, and even strangers. That’s part of what makes the con special to me; there’s something magical about the way it expresses the simple joy of having so many fans under one gigantic roof. In an average Fanime I probably hug close to a hundred people, so when one more person caught me on the way to the doors, raising his arms for the hug, I didn’t think much of obliging him. It wasn’t enough for him, evidently, because almost immediately he started grinding his crotch against my leg. I didn’t feel much, per se, but being sheathed in skintight napa leather is a deceptively sensitive experience. The feeling was very distinctly anatomical, and I could tell from his motion that he meant it. Even if I couldn’t, the shit-eating grin on his face would have been hint enough.

That was not civilized. He is not civilized. We scold dogs for that kind of misbehavior.

You can see him off to the left here. I’m told his name is Viki. I’m posting his picture as a warning to others. He has no excuses.

Where YaoiCon is a sexually-themed convention, Fanime is not, and Fanime’s Monday afternoon is its very last dance, an extra day that most conventions don’t even have. It’s an afternoon of goodbyes, almost, and by then it’s time to start fading back to Earth, back to the real world and its very real expectations. Out here, at least, “acceptable behavior” simply doesn’t include dry-humping people without permission. At its core, the problem is only tangentially sexual; really I believe that it’s a problem of respect and dignity. I find it telling that neither of my tormentors apologized; instead, they gave me empty stares, almost as though they couldn’t understand that I might be offended. No modern apology is adequate, but I would have appreciated the attempt.

I suppose I should count my blessings. At YaoiCon I only had to suffer five or six quick thrusts; they stopped when I obviously didn’t enjoy them. This latest incident at least ended with my firm no.

That’s not the point, though, is it? I shouldn’t have to put a stop to it; I shouldn’t have to remind people that some things are out of line.

Apparently, though, this concept is a little more difficult than I thought.

This time, Rio found me.

“Are you following me?” he asked, almost laughing at the absurdity of it all. I turned at the sound of his voice and found him leaning comfortably across the counter. “You know, I could have given you my number and saved you the trouble.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“No, no you don’t, actually.” he said, his eyes glittering as he straightened and looked me up and down. With a faint smile, he brushed a speck of dust from his shirt, running his slender fingertips against the tiny antiqued-gold nametag pinned there. “I’m Rio. How may I help you?” His voice dropped, just slightly, as he tilted his head, looking at me as if he meant something more than jewelry. “What do you need?”

When I think back and wonder when I began to fall for Rio, I come back to this moment, to the way he looked at me, the way I saw myself reflected back in his eyes. It was the almost-lilt in his voice that caught me, the beautiful, casual weight of that question. “What do you need?” A small, happy noise forced itself out, deep in my chest. I handed him my watch without a word.

For a moment he considered it, holding it to his ear to hear it tick. “It’s just a broken crystal,” he said. “Call it… twenty-five, probably.”

I nodded, licking my lips. The seams of his pants were sewn with soft pink thread, highlighting his long legs and the gentle sway of his hips, and my mouth went dry as I watched him walk to the workbench in the back of the store. “Twenty-five. Right. Okay.”

“I think… ow!” he cut his finger on a stray fragment of crystal. “Uff. Yeah, I don’t have this size…” he gave his fingertip a slow, thoughtful suck as he set the watch on his table. “I think I need to grind one to fit… can you come back in an hour or so?”

“Sure. Yeah, I can do that.” His tongue was very pink, bright against his lightly tanned skin. I tried not to think too much about it as I turned to leave. Behind another counter, a very small, beautiful woman, dark and elegant in her inky-blue dress, gave me a wicked, knowing smile.

The little bell over the door tinkled as I returned, and I found her sitting astride Rio’s lap, her arms around his shoulders as she watched him work. He held a tiny blowtorch between his fingers, peering at something through dark goggles as he kissed it gently with the flame. “Your friend is back,” she murmured.

“I should take care of him, then,” he said, switching off the torch. “Shoo.” He slid her gently off his lap and swatted her affectionately across the rear. “Cute little pest.”

She smoothed out her dress with cheerful indignation, turning to make a face at him over her shoulder. I tried not to stare at the enchantingly simple, trim audacity of the movement. She glanced from me, to Rio, then back again, and leaned over, whispering into his ear with an evil little smile.

Rio pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, canting his head to the side as he listened to her. “I’ll think about it, yes?” He looked up at me, accepting my payment, and fastened my watch around my wrist, gentle and secure. “Jacqueline likes to tease. You’ll have to excuse her. She’s half French, and she’s inheirited some of their…” For an instant his grip tightened, his fingers and the band reminding me of nothing so much as a soft leather cuff and the insistence of its chain. “…perfect centuries of coquetry.” He seemed to savor the phrase, almost as though he were reciting it.

I must have given him a strange look, because after a moment he shook his head sadly, as if I’d missed something important.

His voice went flat, almost formal. “I’m so sorry for the delay.”

I looked down at my watch, tracing my fingers along the crystal’s edge, feeling the perfect fit as I wondered what I’d done. “Some things are worth a wait.”

“Yes,” he said, his bright blue eyes looking through me as he paused to think about it. “The hard part is deciding which ones they are.”