New York Will Have To Wait (for two months anyway)

It sickened me to type the title of this blog. I’ve had to make a difficult decision but I think it’s the mature one. I’ve decided to postpone my return to New York by a month and a half. Instead of going back on December 29, I’ll now return February 14. I had forgotten that I had tickets to Sundance Film Festival and so it would have been a situation of getting to New York and then leaving again in three weeks. It also gives me more time to prepare since I was, in essence, going back to NYC with no money, no job, and no place to live.  I’m going to stay here in Alabama until time to go to Utah and then head to New York after that. I chose February 14 because I’m in love with that city. What better day to return to the city I’m in love with than Valentine’s Day? It is so hard to postpone the trip but it will give me time to go back feeling a little more prepared. I’ll also get more time to get closer to my fitness goal (260 lbs., 15% BFR) and more time with with my buddy Spud. Not to mention I’ll  have a little bit more time to help Mom and get some systems in place for her to make sure she has the support she leaves when I’m no longer here.

A veterans is driving from Arkansas this weekend to interview me for a documentary project he’s working on. It’s about veterans who are considering or have considered suicide. He was supposed to interview another guy I know but didn’t get to him in time. He mentioned that without really realizing what he was saying when he asked if I’d be willing to be interviewed. I told him he “better hurry. The holidays are upon us.” He laughed. No one gets gallows humor like a veteran.

It’s very hard to think about not going back to New York for yet two more months. I’m so excited to get home. But as I’ve said all along, God is driving this train and I continue to just go as I’m lead.

I have an RV for sale. It’s value is $15K if I can sell it before February 14, that will be money for me to get started in New York without having to be homeless. My friends of course would put me up while I get on my feet but I’m sick of relying on charity. I want to be self-sus— yeah, that’s what I want to talk about!

So I want to be self-sustaining! I’m talented and a hard worker and I want to make enough money to house, feed, clothe myself! Is that so much to ask! And yes, of course I could get a job at Wal Mart and live far enough away from where I want to live to get by— but that’s not what I want to do. I know I sound like a couch-riding stoner when I say this but I really do think that if I went and got a life-sucking “day job” just so I could somehow manage to scrape by— well, I’ve done that before— I did it for years— deluding myself into thinking I would just “write my plays at night when I’m off work” or “save the vets in my spare time.” That is such a joke and— here’s where you’re going to think I’ve really gone off my nut—I believe it’s part of the conspiracy to keep We the People down! The last goddamn thing the 1% wants is someone like me out there, rested and ready to do battle behalf of the disenfranchised! They want us all working two jobs and up to our eyeballs in debt so we never have time to organize, discuss what’s wrong with the status quo, or GOD FORBID do anything about it.

I am an artist and and activist. I have unique talents and abilities peculiar to me to make shit happen— good shit. No, I’m not going to roll over and get a high-paying sales job just because it’s high paying. Mamma always said, “Jeffrey, you want to change the world!” Although I think she meant it as an admonition, wanted to encourage me to be more accepting of the way things are, it actually had the opposite effect and helped to amalgamate some seemingly unrelated and queer components of my young self into what become my raison d’êtres. Yeah Mamma, I want to change the world alright. And I want to do it from New York. As a playwright and an activist. But for now, that’s going to have to wait a little longer. And that, I’m just going to have to accept.

See y’all tomorrow.