Packing

A friend talked me into going to Berlin for Easter. I'll fly the Atlantic for any excuse nowadays, so it took little persuasion. It's fascinating how different cultures honor the Resurrection in their own way, and the Berliners' approach, I can appreciate.

The hardest part of a trip to a big fetish event is the packing. Whatever else one might say about such occasions, there is no question costume changes are a huge part of it. Mix the rarity, for some of us, of opportunities to wear our gear with the naturally queeny inclination not to be seen in the same outfit twice, and voilà: overstuffed suitcase. Leather is heavy, especially the boots, and if you want to avoid heavy luggage fees from the airline, some editorial selection is necessary.

I don't fly until Tuesday night, but as I'll be busy with work Monday night, I started packing already. I've been at it for an hour, and not a single item has made it to a suitcase yet. First I arrayed all the gear on my bed: tops, bottoms, accessories. Then I put away the impulse buys I never wear but still like to look at. I check the event calendar and ask, will I need more than two outfits of latex? Should they be street legal? Will I have an occasion to wear this neoprene singlet, and if I do should I bring my wrestling shoes, which I would not otherwise wear? Will three pairs of leather slacks be enough, or too much?

And then there's cotton. For some reason no matter what I pack for, I always bring two or three times more t-shirts than I need. This time it should be easier, because my favorites are from Berlin, but I have this rule about not wearing bar or shop t-shirts in the city where I bought them, because then it's not special, so I have a smaller selection to tempt me.

As important as the fetish gear is, having comfortable clothing is also key, for daytime tourism. Translation: bring a lot of jeans and top layers. Doing this reminds that I've more or less given up on mainstream stylishness, except for work, and it's a little depressing. On the other hand, t-shirts and jeans are a timeless look for a reason.

I'd better get back to it. I haven't even determined if a trip to the laundromat will be necessary this weekend. Sigh.

IML?

I've made plans to attend International Mr. Leather in Chicago once again this year, but I'm thinking of skipping it to save money. I have a feeling if I go I'll have an okay time but wonder why I've chosen to spend Memorial Day Weekend holed up in a crowded hotel in downtown Chicago. If I don't, I'll probably wish I were there, but at least I'll be $1200-$1500 richer. (It's not possible for me to do it any cheaper, not with the constant temptation of the vendor market.)

Why is it these days everything I do requires a decision about spending money? It was easier to justify expenses like this when it only meant going deeper into debt, but now that I'm flush, it's about ending 2011 with $x in the bank or $x-1200 in the bank. What would Suzie Orman do?

Telecommuting

I've been working at home a lot lately. My job has evolved to where it is 70% web-based workflow, so there are few technical reasons for me to be in the office and fewer reasons still pertaining to coworker interaction, as my team is geographically dispersed.

I've been enjoying the freedom of it. There's nothing like waking up at 8:00, booting up the laptop, and being on the job at 8:30 while still in my robe sipping coffee. I'm also cooking for myself more, which is nice and healthy, but I'm getting tired of frying things.

There were points when I thought there were simply too many distractions to work at home, namely the TV. During the uprising in Egypt, I was glued to CNN an entire afternoon when I ought to have been working. But the novelty of TV at work wore off, and CNN's incessant coverage of right-wing lunatics made switching the boob tube off an easy decision.

My company offers the option to work full-time at home. I can't imagine wanting to do this in July or August, in my un-air-conditioned apartment, but if I evict my roommate, his bedroom would make a decent home office, and I could air-condition it. The company would pay for a dedicated phone line, internet access, and a printer, which would take some of the financial sting out of living alone.

Of course, my commute to Midtown, door to door, is only about 30 minutes on a good day, I've got a couple of new Brooks Brothers suits gathering dust, and there's truly a lot to be said for Midtown happy hours. Maybe I won't give up the cubicle yet.

Alone

Last year, after I paid off my debt and my roommate told me he was moving out, I had a decision to make: find a new roommate or go it alone. I could afford to live alone, but it would mean giving up travel and being more conservative financially than I've ever managed to be. I chose the roommate.

I've come to regret that choice. It's not that my new roommate is bad. He pays the rent, has a sweet disposition, and spends a lot of time running around the city. He'd be perfect if only he weren't such a slob. Three months into our cohabitation, I'm fed up with cleaning up after him. I didn't place many conditions on him to move in, but I was clear about my expectation of a thorough biweekly housecleaning. He's not doing it.

More than that, I've been feeling, as a single 40-year-old, that I shouldn't be dealing with anyone else's messes. It's time to make a sacrifice to get some privacy. So I've decided that I will live alone by 2012. The only questions are whether to stay in this apartment, and if so, how soon to evict the party bear.

I have a good deal on rent here. It's a two-bedroom apartment priced only slightly more than many one-bedroom apartments are going for in this area, but it has some deficiencies. The renovation was sloppy, the stove needs to be replaced, and so does the carpeting. The neighborhood has grown noisier as more bars have moved in, and with my landlord living across the hall, I sometimes feel like I'm under scrutiny.

A change of scenery could be good for me. I've been exploring other parts of Queens, and there are some really wonderful neighborhoods out here. Off Skillman Avenue in Sunnyside there's a small enclave of ivy-covered homes with gardens that looks like it was transplanted from England. On 90th Street in East Elmhurst there's a row of cottages so cute I could pinch myself, and in Jackson Heights almost every block has a different style of housing, not to mention the vibrant gay nightlife.

But if I stay here alone, I'd be the rare New Yorker with a spare bedroom. Sometimes when I'm vacuuming or cleaning the toilet, I fantasize about what I'd do with my roommate's space. I could move half my clothes in there, get a desk and have a home office, and get a futon couch/bed for company. I could list it on Ebab.de and make new European friends. The possibilities are endless.

But now I need to clean the bathroom sink of someone's hair…

2010

I turned 40 a month ago. Not much has changed, except now I have a good excuse for the gradual and inevitable decline in what limited vigor and stamina I had. Systems break down, and I'm loving it.

2010 was a stressful year. It started out with the simultaneous realizations that I was 10 pounds heavier than I ever imagined possible and that I was so deep in debt I needed to take drastic steps to cut my spending. Weight loss and saving money are complementary objectives and I recommend pursuing them both at the same time. Cook your own food and skip the booze and snacks. The pounds will melt away and you'll save a mint.

I joined a friend in using the LoseIt app to track calories, and incredibly by May I had lost the 10 pounds and then some. It was a little alarming because people kept asking what happened to my ass. Same thing that happened to my gut.

Cutting debt was a lot harder, because I needed to rid myself of several thousand more dollars than pounds. I didn't have a game plan, and if there's an app for getting by in New York City with a third of your income going to debt service, I have yet to discover it.

Nevertheless, I managed to plan several trips for the year, having become addicted to travel and elite flyer status. Despite the near poverty, I managed to go to Washington, Madrid, Chicago, London, San Francisco (twice), Provence, Berlin, and New Orleans last year. I leveraged reward points and traveled with friends to save money, but when I look back, I don't know what I was thinking. (But I'm still thinking it, as my 2011 travel calendar will attest.)

Aside from that, the job I'd been hating since before the great recession started was not getting any better, and yet I had to feel grateful to have a job at all. I focused on the fat and the spending and dealt with the job as well as I could manage. Eventually I'd find something else or they'd sack me.

At some point in April my roommate of six years told me he was buying a condo and would probably move out by September. Suddenly the fact that I was the only one who had spent any money on our apartment in the last three years made a lot of sense. His money was going elsewhere. I wasn't mad. He was a good roommate and a kind person, and it would be hard to find someone as good. I had to decide whether to stay in the apartment, move in with someone else, or try and make it on my own. It was another big variable in a life equation growing more complex every day.

By May it struck me that something weird was going on at my company. The senior members of my department, marketing and communication, seemed stressed. Their doors were always closed, yet client work and other projects were running behind schedule or not getting done at all. My office was in the middle of a long corridor with the CFO at one end and the CEO at the other, and there was a noticeable uptick in traffic. In retrospect, I can see that there are but a few explanations for situations like this: your company is going out of business, being taken over, or trying to hide something from the government. At the time, I was just so happy that no one was riding my ass about anything that it seemed like I might even come to like my job again.

In June, the head of my department finally broke the news: the company was being acquired by a much larger competitor. She needed the whole department's help in managing the PR and internal communication, and we were obliged to sign a non-disclosure agreement until the deal was announced. We all spent the next month working long hours and weekends, preparing plans and materials we had to revise every time the announcement was delayed. It was an incredible bonding experience, as times of excessive drinking so often are.

Thankfully, in terms of me not having to cancel my July vacation in London, the deal was finally announced at the end of June. And after that, my job got easy, because most of the work dried up. Nobody was starting new projects, and it was the middle of summer. Anybody with a phone was phoning it in.

As scary as it was to think I would be out of a job in a few months, the acquisition presented an opportunity to get out of debt: because of the takeover, I could either roll my company's retirement plan into the acquiring company's plan or I could cash out. After some serious number crunching, I realized that even with the early withdrawal penalty, I could erase my debt and have a few grand to spare. I went for it. A lot of us did.

At the end of July, the deal closed, and we were all officially employees of another company. Incredibly, except for the department head, my team all had secure jobs. One person left, but the rest of us are still there, eight months later.

I decided to stay in my apartment and find a new roommate. I met a few potential ones, including a sexy Hungarian personal trainer. Then my current roommate announced his condo deal would not close in September. Alas, the hot Hungarian roommate was not to be.

If anything happened in August, I don't remember. Too much tequila. I did buy a new suit at Brooks Brothers. A coworker's wedding was coming up, and I was still certain I'd be looking for work soon.

By September, the integration teams were in full effect at work. I flew south to meet my new manager and to attend a conference. It was a great show of confidence for them to pay for me to travel anywhere, much more than anything I'd experienced in the previous three years. A lot of people were worried about their futures with the new employer, but for me, all signs were encouraging.

In October, things were degenerating at the old workplace, as they must during a takeover. The obvious overhead were given notice, and there were some surprises and a few voluntary resignations. I couldn't wait for November to relocate to the new company's office. My roommate announced he'd move out by the end of November, and I picked a new roommate for January, a friend of a friend of my old roommate who ran in the same circles as me, when I bothered to run at all.

In November, the disbursement from my retirement fund came. I happily scheduled three huge credit card payments and then went shopping for bedroom furniture. I visited a friend in France, which was kind of awful and deserves a post of its own, someday.

In December I got my apartment ready for the new roommate: switched bedrooms, cleaned the carpets, nearly broke my back lifting things. I'm sure I could have skipped it all and the new roommate would never have noticed. I went to Berlin for a week, having canceled an earlier planned trip there because of work. December is not the best month for a vacation in Northern Europe, but Berliners take the snow in stride. You can get by rather affordably as a tourist in Berlin, and the nightlife is great, even in December. Then it was back to the States for the holidays, yadda yadda yadda, and finally New Orleans for New Year's Eve.

The lesson I learned from the last year is that if you don't actively work to control your destiny, something else will. Or that no matter what you plan for, unforeseen things will make you change your plans. Or maybe it's that you can't stop change. Whatever it was, I'm thankful for most of the changes, sad about some, and hope I never again go through a year like 2010.

Incidentally

The weird sensitive skin thing? Pretty sure it's from stressing a nerve in my neck during a workout. It has happened a few times in the last two years, after my intermittent workouts. It always clears up after a few weeks of inactivity.