The roundup for the List Jam just went up on CD and the jam page for the Alternative Ecologies jam I'm running with Now Play This is live too. This is following on the Bitsy essay jam I did towards the end of last year; I also have some forthcoming teaching, facilitating and speaking roles while I'm kind of sitting on my hands waiting for either academic or cultural institutions to start actually hiring full time staff again. Yes, I literally finalized my PhD all of four months before all this shit kicked off, and we all became "online facilitators" because the jobs we wanted to do either contracted or ceased to exist.
This isn't to say I don't enjoy any of that work. Doing writing jams in particular and workshop facilitation in general often just feels like a way to get my friends to make cool stuff for me, or to meet other people that also make cool stuff I should know about, which I sometimes can get paid for. Production work also isn't too bad, when it involves putting together artists and themes in a way that totally clicks and leads to a really cool event. I have to say, all of the admin involved in getting, negotiating, and invoicing for these opportunities basically sucks though, and I'm completely dispositionally ill-suited to it in the same way I'm dispositionally ill-suited to take compliments or make my face look normal when I'm telling a white lie. lol.
But also, it really doesn't pay that well, which is why, in the immediate, I'd rather get a suitable full time job that actually involves writing or research in a major way, rather than these precarious, socially-intensive temporary roles that are like, doable but mainly using weird random tricks I've learned along the way, as if I'm a sheepdog getting by entirely through appearing to solve math problems like Mr. Ed or something. Unfortunately these have statistically been two of the stupidest things to be good at for the majority of my adult life, and are especially stupid now. Even when you can do them, they're ridiculously devalued. There's like, three sites to pitch to that say they'll pay you over $200 for a 1500 word plus article any more.
So I guess my feeling is primarily "mixed," haha. I see the value in what I do individually, which is nice, even if it's kind of disciplinarily kept cheap by capitalism so I occasionally get to phase into panic or feeling shit about myself, which pleases the overlords who would like to homogenize all art and culture. But the social element and the precarity of it wear me down and make every day feel like a hurdle course could spring up in front of me like, at the whim of my email inbox refreshing. I'm very lucky my partner with a maths BA can get a SQL job that basically covers us and exists anywhere we might want to live so long as we keep our expenses like, moderate, but I'd also like to give him more of a chance to be a house husband and work on his own (unsustainable, culturally devalued) creative projects, and, oh yeah, actually do the type of work I'm trained for and good at maybe in the process.
I'm also really lucky he's an EU citizen, which made living together after our relationship was recognized by The State (cringeeee) if not more straightforward, at the very least cheaper than the literally lifewrecking sized bills for people in the UK in general to let their partners come live with them. Though idk, this situation also made me immigration-status-complicated for the last year or so which ALSO made my job options a bit more narrow and I'm only beginning to try and see which pure "day job" categories won't just disqualify me out of hand for being maybe a bit more complicated to deal with than the other 100 ppl applying. Of course, it's always been Hell World in that area too where I had to f/take a personality test to work at a burrito place and working at a convenience store also meant having to become embroiled in the family drama of the scolding superego calling you and guilting you into coming in every time someone called off. Likeeee... I am Lucky! but also all of my options suck. I direct my rage at the joy stolen from me personally for little to no practical reason but also from everyone else in similar ways.
I feel happy, I have some "gigs lined up" and I live with someone who makes living with someone easy, which maybe I wasn't even sure was an option at an earlier part of my life, lol. But I also feel like over the next few months I'll reach full extension with this freelancing stuff and risk burning out, and my last scrape with autistic burnout (which was what led to me getting a formal diagnosis at age 27, again, lol) was REALLY not fun and I literally lost all of my social skills in a way I feel like I've only regained like, 50%. Like I was pushing myself and masking hardcore in hindsight, but looking back, that person feels totally different, sometimes in a better way? But also, looking back, I was fundamentally more unstable, more unhappy, etc, at all those times in my life where I think, oh, that's where I was the skinniest, or most productive, or most good looking, or socializing the most. Piss on achievement!
Anyways hmm... what's the point of this post? I guess I've had people ask me for "career advice" which means I'm projecting a type of success, though really it's only the kind that comes from compulsively writing and having no venue (with capital anyways) that values it, but I have made a lot of friends and gotten married from it, so if you're looking for that... maybe? Also this is my personal blog, so sometimes you just get FEEELINGS or a life update rather than extrapolating on art theory though I do really spend a lot of my time doing the latter. Finally, I've gotten an interview for a job that DOES fit the criteria above, and WOULD suit my needs and schedule, and I also think I'm one of the top people in the world who could do it. However it's also at a location that I definitely associate with the early warning signs of my autistic burnout crash, and which just might make me fully insane in the long run. Idk. I'm sure this will be entertaining and informative to look back on regardless of how that situation pans out.