The plan was to visit Eastern and Central Europe for at least a few months to write and to DJ. The biggest question regarded how to disentangle myself from my office here in the states. Ultimately, the best case scenario would have been one that would have allowed me to hold all my cards for as long as possible.
The best case scenario came true yesterday.
I had two aces up my sleeve that, until this week, I had been completely unaware of. The first was the vehement support of my co-workers, who demanded that I be able to continue working for the organization even while overseas. Their sincere testimony to my importance—instanteous and unprompted—showed that I had a bedrock of support hitherto unknown to me. This support made the thought that I be allowed to work remotely from Eastern Europe more palatable to upper management, and strengthened the case for granting me a leave of absence instead of pursuing termination.
Lessons learned: it pays not to suck at your job, and it pays to have people like you.
The second ace was a bit more comical; until Monday I had been unaware that I had accrued 9 weeks of vacation time. This, according to my supervisor, made everything much easier to arrange.
After many hours spent mentally running in the hamster wheel Monday and Tuesday (coupled with physically running around campus and, on a cold and rainy Tuesday, the fifth level of the parking deck), my supervisor and I concluded that there were two ways things could have gone:
1) Termination from my job in January, me becoming a contractor to the organization, and my vacation time being dolled out to me in one lump sum in the form of a physical check mailed two months after departure.
This was an undesirable scenario. Since I won't have a permanent address in two months, the check would have to go to somebody else to cash. That introduces too many variables for my comfort. And, of course, having no guarantee of employment upon returning means I've lost a card in my hand.
2) A three month vacation/leave of absence combination, padded by hours spent working for the organization remotely as needed, allowing me to continue to receive regular monthly direct deposit payments for the first 2 to 3 months with the guarantee of a job to come back to afterward.
Things went the second way.
The journey will be stressful, my world will be a very different place in a few months, and there will be plenty of questions I will need to answer soon (3 months will go by in the blink of an eye). But it is better to depart this way than any other way.
As I walked home from work yesterday I turned my eyes upward to the Biltmore Hotel. It shined in the golden glow of the late afternoon sun against a crisp blue sky. I walk past the Biltmore every single day, but yesterday, and for the first time, it looked gorgeous to me.
Last night at Apres Diem, Seth remembered how it felt when he left his job. "I realized for the first time that I had been living in a bubble."
This hits the nail on the head. Today I see the world crisply. I see it with all its possibilities wide-open to me. Atlanta looks beautiful for the first time in years because it is no longer my prison.
Showing posts with label Apres Diem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apres Diem. Show all posts
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Prison Break: Two Nights of Drinking and Talking
Between now and my departure I am going to alternate between two types of journal entries. One will deal with the psychological and organizational aspects of what I am attempting. The other will deal more specifically with the countries that I wish to visit and my plans concerning those countries. I wrote a bit about Estonia yesterday, so now it's time to turn back to the psychological issues and the planning.
I'm groggy and hung-over from two nights in a row of pleasurable conversation. At Apres Diem, Vaidas and I talked until 11:30 PM, he drinking whiskey and Coke and me downing five Stellas. The fifth Stella was a bad idea, though I woke up fairly alert the next day and was productive.
Vaidas was born in Lithuania, and as a kid he visited many of the countries that lay behind the Iron Curtain. Romania in the late 1980s, before their 1989 revolution, was a big shithole, he said, a country where people begged visitors for soap and cigarettes. It's little wonder that Ceausescu and his wife wound up being executed by firing squad during the revolution.
Vaidas talked about spending $3 a night for a "hotel" in...I think it was Belarus, but we kept flipping back and forth between countries and we were drunk so I cannot be sure anymore. I will say it was Belarus, because this story fits Belarus. In Belarus he stayed in a cabin, and each room had its own fireplace. A babooshka would come in and tend to the fire. He said he gave her a $3 dollar tip. After that she came into his room to throw logs into the fire all the time.
Belarus remains the most Soviet of all the former Soviet states (George W. Bush called it the "last remaining dictatorship in Europe" back in 2005). Without a good and trustworthy friend to travel with it would likely be too unsafe for me to explore this country on my own. I am hoping to find such a friend, because there aren't many places like Belarus left, so it would be interesting to see the country before change comes. Alexander Lukashenko, their President for 15 years now, is going to have to go someday.
Places like Belarus, Moldova, and Russia are among the places where bribing is most rampant, but Vaidas said $3 was enough to get a cop off his case, again I think in Belarus. (Incidentally, in reviewing this story everything in Vaidas's world appears to cost $3.) The art of the bribe is something I hope I do not have to learn, but in the sink or swim environment I am entering it may become a necessary skill.
After Vaidas and I finished with our conversation, we stumbled out into the night where we discovered a long line of teenaged girls and their mothers spilling out of the movie theater. Vaidas asked a mom and her two daughters what was up, and they replied that they were waiting to see the premiere of the new "Twilight" film.
Last night, Nathan, Seth, and I met up in Little Five Points. At the Brewhouse Seth expressed for the first time some reservations about the risks I was taking, affected in part by the things Vaidas had said the night before (Seth had been there for the first half of that conversation). Nathan also for the first time confessed that he initially thought the idea of running off to Eastern Europe was a bad one, but now admits that if I don't do this I will forever wonder sadly what might have been.
Nathan and I wound up at the Yacht Club after we dropped Seth off by his car, and we had an excellent conversation which was punctuated by the brief appearance of two cute Emo girls, one in a flannel shirt, who sat across from us, but then seemed to think that a poor idea and left to join other friends.
After getting home I watched "Survivor" over the Internet, downloaded some songs I'd been looking for via Shareaza in tandem with Pirate Bay (since Google doesn't offer these particular tracks, which were Esmee Denter's "Admit It" and Daan's utterly superb "Icon"). Then I passed out and regained consciousness around 11:30 this morning.
Because I signed up for Google Adsense, I suspect you will see several ads for alcohol treatment. I saw an ad today for help in finding your gay mate. If this sounds like something you want to click on, please do; it will help me out.
It's strange stepping into the commercial world after running the www.kingpigeon.com site non-commercially for about a decade, now, but I need to think about ways to generate revenue because I am not going to have much money when I arrive in Europe.
I told my sister in an email about my plans for the first time today because I need somebody with a physical address I can trust who can collect and deposit (the likely meager) checks I might receive from advertising revenue.
I'm groggy and hung-over from two nights in a row of pleasurable conversation. At Apres Diem, Vaidas and I talked until 11:30 PM, he drinking whiskey and Coke and me downing five Stellas. The fifth Stella was a bad idea, though I woke up fairly alert the next day and was productive.
Vaidas was born in Lithuania, and as a kid he visited many of the countries that lay behind the Iron Curtain. Romania in the late 1980s, before their 1989 revolution, was a big shithole, he said, a country where people begged visitors for soap and cigarettes. It's little wonder that Ceausescu and his wife wound up being executed by firing squad during the revolution.
Vaidas talked about spending $3 a night for a "hotel" in...I think it was Belarus, but we kept flipping back and forth between countries and we were drunk so I cannot be sure anymore. I will say it was Belarus, because this story fits Belarus. In Belarus he stayed in a cabin, and each room had its own fireplace. A babooshka would come in and tend to the fire. He said he gave her a $3 dollar tip. After that she came into his room to throw logs into the fire all the time.
Belarus remains the most Soviet of all the former Soviet states (George W. Bush called it the "last remaining dictatorship in Europe" back in 2005). Without a good and trustworthy friend to travel with it would likely be too unsafe for me to explore this country on my own. I am hoping to find such a friend, because there aren't many places like Belarus left, so it would be interesting to see the country before change comes. Alexander Lukashenko, their President for 15 years now, is going to have to go someday.
Places like Belarus, Moldova, and Russia are among the places where bribing is most rampant, but Vaidas said $3 was enough to get a cop off his case, again I think in Belarus. (Incidentally, in reviewing this story everything in Vaidas's world appears to cost $3.) The art of the bribe is something I hope I do not have to learn, but in the sink or swim environment I am entering it may become a necessary skill.
After Vaidas and I finished with our conversation, we stumbled out into the night where we discovered a long line of teenaged girls and their mothers spilling out of the movie theater. Vaidas asked a mom and her two daughters what was up, and they replied that they were waiting to see the premiere of the new "Twilight" film.
Last night, Nathan, Seth, and I met up in Little Five Points. At the Brewhouse Seth expressed for the first time some reservations about the risks I was taking, affected in part by the things Vaidas had said the night before (Seth had been there for the first half of that conversation). Nathan also for the first time confessed that he initially thought the idea of running off to Eastern Europe was a bad one, but now admits that if I don't do this I will forever wonder sadly what might have been.
Nathan and I wound up at the Yacht Club after we dropped Seth off by his car, and we had an excellent conversation which was punctuated by the brief appearance of two cute Emo girls, one in a flannel shirt, who sat across from us, but then seemed to think that a poor idea and left to join other friends.
After getting home I watched "Survivor" over the Internet, downloaded some songs I'd been looking for via Shareaza in tandem with Pirate Bay (since Google doesn't offer these particular tracks, which were Esmee Denter's "Admit It" and Daan's utterly superb "Icon"). Then I passed out and regained consciousness around 11:30 this morning.
Because I signed up for Google Adsense, I suspect you will see several ads for alcohol treatment. I saw an ad today for help in finding your gay mate. If this sounds like something you want to click on, please do; it will help me out.
It's strange stepping into the commercial world after running the www.kingpigeon.com site non-commercially for about a decade, now, but I need to think about ways to generate revenue because I am not going to have much money when I arrive in Europe.
I told my sister in an email about my plans for the first time today because I need somebody with a physical address I can trust who can collect and deposit (the likely meager) checks I might receive from advertising revenue.
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