Yes, yes, I know a month is far too long not to have written something, and frankly I have had a lot to say, but for some reason it never made it to the "paper" so to speak.
First, let's get it out of the way. Last night was insane. I have finally connected with the HRC people in New York, realizing that I knew a great many of them from my years going to all the national stuff, which was nice. As my first real event, I attended the town hall that was held to talk about ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act). For those of you who haven't heard, the entire gay community seems to be up in arms at HRC for supporting a bill that provides coverage for the LGB community, but leaves out the T. In brief, let me say that HRC had little choice in the matter if they wanted to keep the relationship they have with the congress, and if they wanted to move towards full equality for all. In their mind, taking steps is the best and fastest strategy, and I agree.
Anyway, the town hall was held to help us disseminate information to the community at large, and try and answer any questions that they may have had. What it became instead was a pulpit-style bloodbath.
Most of the people that attended the event had no interest in a town hall to get information. They didn't ask questions, they attacked the panel with a barrage of rants. For the record, I don't call them rants because they were disagreements; I call them rants because they were mostly illogical, repetitive strings of words that accomplished nothing. I especially hated people that tried to use history on their side when clearly they didn't know what they were talking about, as out nation has time and time again proven that baby steps often net the most results in the end. I hope that some of those people left feeling better for having got some of their anger off their chests, because no one really left that room with more information on either side. I do want to commend the few people that were thoughtful and intelligent. They certainly weren't on our side, but they seemed generally interested in getting information so that their opinion was based in fact and not assumption. More than half of these thoughtful people were obviously students, which may say something. More and more I realize that age has very little to do with rationality or maturity.
Alright, enough of that. Last time I wrote, I mentioned that I finally made the move to New York. I am loving it. I have had some significant money issues, though that springs not from the move itself, but rather the general job market at the end of the year. The jobs that I was planning on taking are holding off till the beginning of the year, so for now things have been a bit tight. I am actually better off having moved, as my bills have surprisingly decreased a great deal being here. The only other effect that the money thing has had on me is that as of yet I still haven't really been able to delve into the social scene the way I would like to. Even my friends are sometimes hard to hang out with as most often we would go out to a bar or to eat, something I am doing a lot less of at the moment. Despite the fact that this one aspect of life here is still temporarily closed to me, I am so happy to be here. I wonder sometimes if I waited for too long to make this change.
One final thing that I want to mention was a new experience for me. For the first time in my life, I felt nostalgic. I was doing some scholarship work at Columbia University, and the moment that I was there, I felt strange. Not strange in a bad way by any means, but strange in the fact that the feeling was new. I realized after a while what it was, and was somewhat surprised that I had never experienced nostalgia before. Being at the school reminded me so much of Harvard I can't even explain it. Being there surrounded by beautiful old buildings dedicated to education while people walked swiftly from place to place seemingly overwhelmed with a drive to learn was something I missed without even realizing it. It has been over eight years now since I left Harvard, and I tell you I didn't realize till then how much I miss it. Even working at a university like that makes me feel good in ways that are still beyond my understanding.
New experiences are always a good thing in my book to have this one be such a good one, and at the same time for it to allow me to experience first hand something I hear about a lot but until now have never truly understood is a great thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment