unemployed and homeless

so. i lost my job.

snigger.

the season is over, the boats are shrink-wrapped, the spars are safe, the hangovers are receding, and everyone has scattered to the four corners of the globe.

well, everyone has scattered. some just scattered to other houses in Baltimore. others have flown to the west coast and beyond to Australia, a few are moving to new york, and one brave soul is moving to Maine. I'm going to have thanksgiving with my family before I come up with any more definitive plans than "move to New York, try again."

its all fine. i'm going to try and wash the taney out of my clothes for the next couple of days.

well, its not fine fine. i have just completely lost all of the friends i'd spent the past year bonding with. i feel that my likelihood of encountering any of them again hovers around a 12% chance.

The Lady Maryland's cook was picked up by his family on Saturday, and it blew all of us away to hear him called Grandpa. Their captain and mine have bought a Rover and plan to sail it from Myrtle Beach to Buffalo once the canals re-open in spring, and i might get a call to help on the transit. LM's first mate has bought a ketch and plans to sail it from Maryland to Maine soon, while her second mate has some rather Kerouac-esque goals in mind. Almost everyone has warm, homeward-bound feelings right now and hopes to re-connect with their estranged land-based families. I wish them the best, and happy holidays.

I'm not alone out of my crew when I express the sentiment that i'm not entirely sure where i'm going from here, or for how long, or why. We rode this gig like a runaway train until it suddenly stopped, flinging us off the roof onto our now bruised behinds, dizzy and perplexed.

Again...any suggestions for graduate study? Something cool i don't know about? Journalism looks like fun, but where is it going to get me that a BA in theatre hasn't? Radio broadcast also looks like...HEAPS of fun, but with competition and the fact that i've barely adjusted a knob on a stereo receiver i have a funny feeling i'm not an ideal candidate for admission. Alas. maybe i'll sign up for some welding classes in January, or try for some freelance theatre gigs with my sister. Or try and get a deckhand gig on the Lettie G. Howard. I don't know anymore. Doesn't anyone just...know what i'm supposed to do?

Aha! I'll take up religion.

tee hee hee hee hee

Actually, I discovered with my haircut (or lack thereof), if i wear an Under Armour black mock turtleneck thermal garment, i look like a priest. Its pretty funny. well, i thought it was funny. other people might say the more appropriate word is "offensive" given the context.

So technically i'm not homeless--i'm in a house now. An actual...house. It doesn't list to starboard at low tide, it doesn't creak in high wind, it doesn't make that wonderful sloshing noise and rock me gently to sleep...it just sits here bravely atop a scenic overlook with the bay beautiful but powerless down below.

On the whole, my housing situation's cool factor has warmed a few degrees. Oh well.

I'm handling it well, i think. At the beginning of last week it didn't occur to me how much i was going to miss my Taney mates and their little noises and behaviors to which I'd grown so accustomed. Seeing the light go on through the holes in the wall, hearing barely-suppressed music through someone else's headphones, hearing the sighing, the swearing, the snoring, the shaving, the shouting...when I left yesterday morning there was complete and utter silence. To say I exited in a hurry would be an understatement. I freakin' ran.

So there you have it. The boats are in exactly the same condition as when I arrived last year--a few things have improved, but a few others have degraded and need maintenance. The pier is vacant, the kids are gone, the crabs have been released and a light film of dust has already begun to settle. I am again looking for work, housing, and friends.

Did 2008 actually happen?