“Whoops! Where’d my job go?”

Followers of my @mrsexsmith Twitter account will know that my 9-to-5 day job is pretty much over. I’ve worked as a graphic designer at a firm in midtown for nearly the last four years, and they spun off two of the three divisions of the company, which were the two I worked for, and now I am technically on leave through December 1st. That means if they call me I have to go in, but I can’t accept another job until December 1st. Meanwhile, I have some t i m e o f f.

The million dollar question is, of course, what are you going to do now? Well, I’m not quite sure. I’ll be doing freelance graphic design and writing for a while, and building up my own artistic career. I will be looking for another job, but I’d like to have some down time before I begin a serious search, and I think I can live on a lot less than I thought was necessary.

I’m also hoping to make some appearances and do some workshops – so far I am scheduled on October 16th, Friday, at Bluestockings Bookstore, speaking on a panel about Feminist Sex, and also on November 16th at Conversio Virium, Columbia University’s BDSM student group, where I’ll be giving a lecture on Gendering Power: How to spice up your role play.

I’d love to do a bit of traveling to colleges nearby, too – Smith, Bard, back to my alma mater the University of Washington. I’m hoping that some of those gigs will work out, my booking company Phin Li has been helping me with my scheduling, and if you’d like to book a date with me, you can contact me at my regular email address or Phin Li at bookings at phinli.com.

(Also, Jesse James is coming to visit, and we are so going to paint the town. Can’t wait. She hasn’t met Kristen yet and it’s going to be a blast.)

I’ve noticed that July and August were two of the quietest months I’ve ever had here on Sugarbutch, for some reasons I’ve already explained, and because work changed their corporate access policies which meant that I couldn’t access this site from there.

I will be going back to the minimum of one-time-a-day five-days-a-week posting on Sugarbutch that I used to do, for a while, while I’m in this transition. I have about twenty topics I need to write on, and half a dozen drafts. If you have topical requests, now’s the time to chime in. And as always, if you have specific questions for me, I’ll be glad to address them as well as I can. I try hard to keep up with my inbox.

The ending of this job is a huge transition. It was absolutely time for this job to end, and it has worked so well for me – really, this job has been the major funding behind Sugarbutch for the last 3.5 years, since I started this site shortly after I got that job and I spent many hours working on Sugarbutch from that position. (Why else do you think my Sugarbutch Star chapbook is by “On Company Time” productions?) I basically got out of debt through this job, and I saved up quite a bit in my 401K, and it has afforded me to get on my feet in New York City in a way that seemed impossible a few years ago. I had been planning to leave this job in the beginning of next year regardless, and the way that this position was eliminated was probably the best possible way to lose a job. Still, it’s a huge change … I’ve commuted to Midtown Manhattan every weekday for nearly four years! I’ve had full access to all sorts of beautiful paper and color printers and supplies! I know my way around that neighborhood so well, in fact, that I don’t know where to get many things in my neighborhood near my house, since I knew I could just pick whatever it was up during my work week.

Meanwhile, though, I’ve had some amazing conversations with Audacia Ray about the future of the Sugarbutch Empire, and where I’m going, and how best to use my time with my artistic career. And I finally, finally, will have a good amount of time to get some of my shit in order and really meditate on where I’m going.