{{{Tom}}}
Tom, on the quit-the-job-for-six-months angle, have you considered seeing if any professional photographers in the NYC area are looking for assistants? A few months helping out/apprenticing under a skilled photographer might let you pick up the technical skills with medium format cameras, darkroom development, and so on that could help lead to a viable career in the field. You have such a good eye for composition and and light, and it's clearly something that you enjoy doing.