Well, it looks like I'll be leaving New York City and moving back to my hometown of Cincinnati.
Today was sort of a St. Valentine's Day Massacre at my firm, with about 10% of the staff getting laid off, and alas, yours truly was among the casualties. Can't say I'm surprised, as the writing had been on the wall for a while. I'm actually amazed it didn't happen much sooner. We had a couple of big federal stimulus projects that kept us going through 2009, but now those projects are mostly complete, and new projects haven't been coming in to replace them. So, fuck you President Bush for killing the economy, but thank you President Obama for allowing me to collect a paycheck for about a year longer than I probably would have otherwise, and for making it possible for me to afford COBRA payments for a few months.
I'm actually fairly upbeat about it, all things considered... I've been itching to move back to Cincy for over a year now, and the desire hasn't gone away despite the fact that so many wingnuts live there. Unemployment benefits go much further in Cincy than they do in NYC, and along with my savings, I should be able to maintain a reasonable if modest standard of living for at least the next six months... By that time I'll hopefully be in grad school, preferably at the University of Cincinnati. (If I'm not in grad school and don't have a job by then, I'll start to panic.)
For those of you in the Cincinnati area, or who have connections there, here's a couple things I'll be looking for once I arrive in town:
- A place to live. I'd rather avoid having roommates if possible, so I'll be looking for a studio or one-bedroom apartment for less than $600/mo. Preferably near the UC campus, or at least on a direct bus line to campus. I have one cat, and the landlord will have to be okay with the fact that I'm collecting unemployment and have some credit issues.
- A car. I'll probably be looking for a late 90's Jeep Cherokee, Grand Cherokee, or a Volvo sedan or station wagon for a couple thousand bucks or so. I'm not married to those particular models, though.
- A job. Although I'll be able to survive on unemployment benefits for a while, that doesn't mean I wouldn't rather be collecting a real paycheck. I'm in the architecture business, but at this point I don't even care if it's architecture-related or not, full time or part time, temp or permanent.
So, if you see something, say something... Any help or leads would be greatly appreciated.