Sliding Scales

On Thursday TP and I went to a QueerOpenMic which is one of my favorite queer spaces in HarborCity, hands down. I read Good (Almost) Man and it was well received. I think that on Wednesdays I'm going to start going to a workshop run by one of the folks there to work on my writing more, because, while economics is cool and all there is a part of me that will always want to write poetry. And God knows I need more fun queer community in my life.

Both of these places, and many others I go to, operate on a sliding scale/pay what you can system. In the past I have depended on that policy to be able to go to these events, and I honor the diversity that policy allows and engenders. So, here is the story, NewJob pays me well, better than OldJob and includes benefits that make me feel a little bit like EliteU doesn't know what to do with all its money and so throughs it at its employees in the form of really cheap gyms and incredible healthcare. I can no longer pretend that I have anything but a middle class paycheck. So I'm a radical queer with a middle class paycheck, who spends a lot of time in fringe cultural spaces. This is new to me. On Thursday for the first time, I paid the upper end of the sliding scale at the open mic. On Wednesday I will need to decide how much to spend on this workshop that I'm going to.

Frankly, I'm not sure how to negotiate this income shift. Sure, I'm putting more money in my savings account. Generally I think that I am the most radical investment I can make. The world will benefit from me being able to afford graduate school, and the books I want to read, but probably not all the books I want to read, and certainly not the cute clothes that I sometimes want to buy. And none of it will mean much at all if the community organizations that I depend on crumble due to lack of funds. From an economics standpoint it's an interesting model -- it would be better if I had the energy to actually create/find a graph for y'all to see. But basically you pay a price for something, and some people want it, but are only able/willing to pay less for it than the price, and so they don't get it and some people are willing to pay more for it, but don't and sort of get their cake and eat it too. The sliding scale/pay what you can system asks everyone to pay what they can and what the "service" is worth to you, eliminating that eat your cake and eat it too phenomenon, but also providing access. So what I should do is ask myself this question: How much would it need to cost for me not to go? One dollar below that is the amount that I should pay... hard to do in practice.

But this doesn't even scratch the surface of how uncomfortable people are with differences in wealth and the ways that having money are connected to being inauthentic. When I pay more money I am sincerely thinking about investing in spaces, and holding them dear and trying to help them balance their books. Yet, I also don't want to distance myself from people by paying more money. Keep in mind that these are small communities where 'nigh on nothin' stays private. Privilege is best when it is easiest to abdicate, to cast off and spread around, like so much shit (compost metaphor), and I think this is one of those cases where that can happen, if there weren't so much angst around it.

But, for real, bottomline:
I hate money.

P.S. It's Saturday night, tonight TP and I grilled veggies, and walked up to the pond in the sunset, and now we are listening to Louis Armstrong, I'm blogging and ze is reading the latest Harry Potter book. Totally priceless.