Unemployment after 50, it's not your like your daddy's job search.

So I'll admit it, last August I got fired.  It was one of those weird situations, where both my former employer and myself had really stopped caring about each other, but I hadn't found something new. They really didn't have any really good excuse to get rid of me until a co-worker called me "hysterical" and I replied via email and copied everyone that I was not, in fact, hysterical.  Whatever. Moving on. 

I had been looking halfheartedly for a new job anyway.  My resume was already prepared, LinkedIn profile was brushed up and I was ready to pound the keyboard and find some work.  It has been over a decade since I had actually been in a job search so I was genuinely surprised how much the job search and unemployment landscape had changed.

Firstly, I'd like to say that applying and maintaining unemployment benefits is a pain in the ass. I had been in the system before and it was literally, the same clunky out of date website from the early 2000's. The program was really difficult to navigate so I ended up going to the unemployment office which was just five blocks away. I am a relatively smart person, but using the unemployment website is a real barrier to collecting benefits, but hey, $275 a week is better than nothing. 

I scored several interviews right off the bat. In fact, in my six weeks of unemployment, I got six. Using a combination of contacts and recruiters I didn't have a problem getting noticed.  However,  Interviews are not what they used to be.  For each position I got an interview for I spent an average of six to eight hours from beginning to end. Things I didn't expect:

1. three to four phone interviews prior to the on-site interview.

2. An endless battery of psychological, logic and math tests.  I got this from each potential employer.

3.  Several "panel" interviews by 3 to 6 individuals.

4.  Several presentations showing your ability to present on a topic.

I can say that in each case, the endless interview was cumbersome. In the end I just ended up resenting the whole process because, it's really hard to stay focused, charming and "upbeat" when an interview lasts for four to five hours.  Because that's really not an interview, its an interrogation.

So, as usual, I landed on my feet. I found a suitable job 7 weeks after I was let go, which seems to promise a happier, brighter future.  

My Own Gay Bashing Story and Why SAVE needs to do more.

So I want to put  into context my feelings about SAVE, a Miami based LGBTQ rights organization. I want them to understand, that supporting indicted gay bashers, then getting caught, and blaming it all on their Executive Director, firing him and then all "Hey we've turned the page!" and "Let's move on!" I mean who cares about the victims, or the community? It's all a clean slate now that SAVE's hired a temporary ED.

Here's my story:

I moved to Miami's South Beach when I  was 20 and in college. I lived in a ground floor apartment in the building on the corner of 3rd Street and Washington, I was the only gay man in a deco building full  of old Jewish ladies. My apartment faced the street and friends would often yell through my window from the sidewalk.

At that age I was quite attractive, not in a masculine way, but in a lithesome feminine way. The way non-athletic teenage boys can sometimes appear. I had pretty curly hair, plump cheeks a very full lips.  Don't get me wrong, I still had a preppy, straight boy demeanor from the 'burbs, but every now and then.....the fairy in me would take over, usually around Halloween, and I'd pick up a cute dress from the thrift store, buy some cheap, but sensible, pumps at Woolworths and steal some lipstick and mascara from a girlfriend. I'd be ready for Halloween festivities!

One year, I found a lovely strawberry red dress with crinolines, not a hoop skirt, but very much like a poodle skirt from the movie Peggy Sue Got Married. Oh, it was lovely, when I spun it would twirl up! The thrift shop queen said I reminded him of Gale Storm, a 40's actress. At last! I was a happy gay boy from the suburbs living my ridiculous gay life in South Beach. 

That Halloween I went to a block party 3 blocks from my door, in front of the bar named Torpedo. I danced and twirled for hours, my dress looking fantastic and finally feeling my gay self with my friends. A care free night, then it was time to walk home, I could even see my building from 5th street. Drunkenly I actually started skipping there.....

But as every pretty girl and lithesome gay boy knows....there is a price to pay for wearing pretty dresses on Halloween night in poorly lit urban neighborhoods.....

In  that short distance home a car pulled up beside me, three young men jumped out, and I knew the score, that scales were being evened out....I ran, I ran as fast as I could. Just feet from my gate, I felt his hands grab my neck, the red strapless dress being ripped off my back. I got in, I ran through the courtyard which always smelled of night blooming jasmine. I was still running and I could actually feel his breath against my exposed back and neck. 

I got to my door, they were less than two or three feet behind me. I opened my door, and they started to crowd me in my studio apartment. I'm in a torn dress, the realization in their eyes that I was a boy and the lead pipe in my hand (which I kept by the door) as I ran at them. Two of them got out, one of them got a lead pipe to the back. They ran to the street yelling "maricon!" "faggot!" in English and Spanish.

Relieved they ran away, I sat and trembled and felt, in my small home, safe at last.  

CRASH!!! CRASH!!!CRASH!!!CRASH!!! All my windows facing the street came raining in on me. Fuck, I'm not even safe in my own home I thought.

Nothing happened after that. I did not call the police. My landlord fixed the windows. I defended myself and my home.  From  that point on, I knew that there was no "safe" gay space, my own home was exposed to the street. I think of those young men who were bashed at Gay Pride, by thugs who were honored at SAVE to realize, that it's not a safe space from homophobia either.