Being a part-time professional résumé writer, I’m in the awkward position of benefiting from the recession. But I’m not smug about it, because it’s no fun doing resumes for friends who’ve lost their jobs. Lower gas prices don’t matter so much when people no longer have jobs to drive to, or houses to drive from. Happy hour at the bar is no longer happy. And at the supermarket we’re getting less for the same prices, so grocery shopping is now like shopping on ManHunt – at first glance the packaging looks big, but when you hold it in your hands, it’s deceptively smaller.

I’m no size queen, but like any gay guy on a budget, I take the time to select the biggest bananas and best head of lettuce at the store. And I buy in bulk: bagging my own oats and whey protein, and buying the family size moisturizers, one-pound bottles of lube, and of course, multi-packs of Kleenex.

Normally I wouldn’t talk about such things, but the other day I heard an NPR story about how penny-pinching is becoming the next cool trend. If trendy frugality could take some of the pressure off of being an urban gay guy, I’d be the first aboard. I’m tired of being expected to own a BMW, the hottest electronics, $200 jeans, and a dozen pairs of $25 designer underwear – all when my writer’s-level salary forces me to keep most of my furniture and clothes for several years, to shop only during clearance sales, drive a seven-year old car, and to occasionally forget this injustice by downing a large glass of the two-buck Chuck.

I can see trendy frugality as a godsend even for double-income gay couples. Instead of feeling obligated to take a $3,000 gay cruise with their friends every year, or pressured to buy the latest D&G shirts and Prada shoes in Rome or Milan, married gay couples can tell their friends how much they’re saving by staying home – where they can enjoy their new 104-inch hi-def TV and 12-man, in-ground Jacuzzi.

Recession or not, my goal this year is to save enough money for a down payment on a house before prices go up again. Finding a better job would no doubt help, but it will probably be spring or summer by the time I get such a job and have to wait to start it. So in the meantime, I’ve come up with some faster money-making schemes.

Since I’m probably too old to work The Boulevard, I thought about placing an escort ad in the Gay & Lesbian Times and other gay rags, all of which would jump at the extra ad revenue right now. But I had to nix this idea, because if I’m recognized it could ruin my career as an influential columnist, and I’d have to make up some lame story about how I was just doing undercover research for a seedy exposé about escort clients. Plus, the idea of having to check for crabs every weekend sounds tedious.

A safer, more hygienic alternative might be to enter wet underwear contests at all the bars in California, and maybe beyond. I’ve seen a few of these contests, and judging by the typical entrants, I might have a shot at winning a few. Unfortunately, wet underwear contests don’t pay much, so it’s probably not worth getting humiliated by catty drag queen hostesses.

Another, drier option is to set up a gay porn site, which I could operate from the comfort of my bedroom. After all, what right-minded, left-wristed guy wouldn’t watch a little porn during a recession? It provides a much needed diversion from the stress of job searching and coupon clipping.

If the gay porn site doesn’t work out, there’s always the online fake pharmacy to fall back on. I’d specialize in selling little blue or yellow pills to aging, frustrated tops. Advertising would be a breeze with e-mail spamming software, and I could just copy the carefully-crafted subject lines that already dominate my e-mail box, such as “With a Monster Schlong you are invincible,” “My Manhood is like a Python,” and the thoughtfully bottom-centric “So hard it hurt me.”

Like porn, little blue pills should be in high demand during a recession – because everyone will be staying home, eating bowls of pea soup and popcorn while watching their giant TVs, and then having lots of sex. It won’t matter if the blue pills I sell are just sugarcoated chalk dust, because by the time my customers find out, I’ll be somewhere on the Mexican Riviera sipping margaritas while my handsome bodyguard Miguel rubs sunscreen and aloe on my back.

Isn’t recession wonderful?