I took the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory. I read What Color is Your Parachute? And I tried:
1. Spring 1992: Actor. I got good reviews in my college plays, and I had some connections in the industry, like Richard Dreyfuss. How hard could it be to get a job in a sitcom? So I signed up for an acting workshop. My first improv scene was: "Jeff, you're returning from a long trip. Your wife meets you at the door, and you hug and kiss." I ran.
2. Spring 1992: Stand-up Comedian. I was good at telling jokes, so I signed up for a class with Judy Carter, who wrote the Comedy Bible. She said: "Your shtick should be about your relationships. Jeff, are you married?" I shook my head. "Divorced? Widowed? Separated? Living with a girl? Going steady?" Finally I told her "Gay," and she yelled: No! You can't be a gay comedian!" I ran.
3. Summer 1992: Translator. I bought some dictionaries, worked on some sample documents, and contacted a lot of translation agencies. I expected to get assignments translating Rimbaud, Verlaine, Thomas Mann, and Garcia Lorca into English. Turns out, surprisingly, the greatest writers in world literature were already translated.
I endured the homophobic comments from the kids, police officers, case workers, and everyone else for about nine months.
5. Summer 1993: Writer. I tried to write a fantasy novel, but I had a problem with the plots. If you're not walking across the continent to vanquish the Dark Lord by throwing something into something, what else is there?
So I wrote a Gay Guide to Religion, scientifically ranking every Christian denomination in the U.S. by its level of homophobia. My agent hated it: it's a slap in the face of all the conservative Christians!
6. Summer 1993: Architect. Why not? I loved old buildings. It would require going back to school again, but it wasn't hard getting a job as an Architectural Assistant at Gruen Associates, the guys who invented shopping malls. Meanwhile I signed up for some architecture classes at UCLA. Who knew that they would go bankrupt and lay me off after a year?
Ok, I had never been to those places, but I figured it was a good niche. Turns out I was wrong. 10 ads in gay magazines, no customers.
8. Fall 1994: Employment Counselor. Most resume services charged $5, but I figured I could charge people $200 each to give them a job test, write their resume and cover letters, and give them interview tips. Surprisingly, this plan didn't work.
9. Fall 1994: Minister. Back in junior high, I thought that God had called me to become a missionary. Maybe He wanted me to become a minister! I called the Metropolitan Community Church, and signed up as a student clergy. It wasn't as glamorous as I expected: they put me in charge of the church hotline, which unfortunately got a lot of questions that weren't related to religion: Where's the best cruising area in town? If I say I'm gay, how much money will you give me? How big is your..."
Seeking a change of venue, we moved to San Francisco in 1995.
11. Fall 1995: Chemist. Maybe I should become a professor, but not in the humanities. Maybe the sciences were the place to be. So I signed up for three introductory science classes at San Francisco City College. I failed calculus and physics, and only passed chemistry by studying six hours a day.
12. Spring 1996: Veterinary Assistant. It didn't require as rigorous a scientific background, there was a veterinary hospital just two blocks away, and I love animals. But not necessarily injured, limping, whining animals in pain. Maybe I should go back to the humanities.
Then one day I was walking across the campus at Berkeley, and I glanced into a classroom and saw the name "John Locke" written on the blackboard. I took it as a sign: go back to graduate school, get your Ph.D., become a college professor. But not in the physical sciences or the humanities. Go into the social sciences.
In the fall of 1997, I enrolled in a fourth graduate program, in sociology at Stony Brook University. This time I graduated.