Happy Labor Day.
Since I am out of work and still looking, I have been “visualizing” my ideal job! Ta da! It exists! But somebody else already has it. The Bloggess!
Yes, she apparently gets paid to write about all the categories of her existence, including momhood, anxiety, sex, and silliness. And she has a book coming out in 2012. I am totally buying it. Or using my free Amazon coupon thingey to buy it. I know she will forgive me, because she is generous as well as funny. But she might mock me for writing for free. For that, I guess I forgive her.
We all have anxieties, OK?
Anyhoo, it’s possible I should also visualize more practical or likely job opportunities, since The Bloggess has already created and taken my ideal job, and good for her!
OK, so my other ideal job is Poet in Residence. I reside here and write poetry, and get paid.
Or Generalist in Residence. (As I can also teach short fiction, literary editing, and acting, etc.)
In this ideal position at a local college or university, I teach but am not required to attend department or committee meetings. I am paid to teach workshop classes with no paper grading, and to set up readings and performance events for the students, inviting the town, and having lots of fun. The students would be traditional and nontraditional college students and members of the community who write, act, or whatever.
We would have a big event every year and invite The Bloggess as our guest speaker. She can say whatever she wants, and would be free to stage another zombie apocalypse.
Another version of the ideal job is one in which I have my own office, fresh flowers in a clear glass vase, and a friendly candy dish (wrapped candies for all, to avoid germ spreading).
It’s a job in which I get to wear more of the clothes in my closet, all saved for a rainy day on which I go to work and get paid. Right now, I wear jammies on into the day, forget to eat breakfast, and then, if I have to go beyond my back yard or my front stoop, put on an outfit I might wear off-and-on for the next week, until there’s some real reason to wash it.
I did have a reason to wash my clothes after creating the homemade compost bin from a garbage can, and after climbing up a ladder into the lilac tree to pull down the seedpods of sweet autumn clematis, which resemble the lady parts of the Wicked Witch of the West and all her female progeny. I can’t even find images of these on the Internet, and I know why!
Fear not, I am actually making a go of it with freelance work and visualizing labial seedpods opening to spread money into my eagerly cupped hands.
I am furiously happy to blog and write poems for free.
See also Labors of Love at Escape Into Life.
12 comments:
The me that works from a place of scarcity says, "Hey, no, those are my ideal jobs!"
The me that wants to believe in a generous universe says, "Cool, a fellow traveler."
The me that wants to be an entrepreneur, even if she isn't sure of the spelling of the word, says, "Hmm, maybe we should start a school . . ."
Happy Labor Day!
Exactly! And, for your husband with the philosophy degree, a Philosophy Shop!
Who is the stand-up comedian who invented the Philosophy Shop? I love him!
How about adjuncting? It sounds very similar to your ideal teaching set-up (minus the whole grades thing).
I am using the Force to help make that job float over to you a bit more quickly.
Thanks, Hannah! Yes, I might adjunct in 2012. We'll see!
Specifically, in the wardrobe for my ideal job, I get to wear my Dorothy dress and look blurry on Mondays and my Glinda wand and crown on Thursdays, and go, "Ta da!"
Rubies slippers, of course, and various interesting accessories.
Ruby slippers.
I'll pay you for all that, when I win the lottery!
Well, as it was Labor Day in retail, I celebrated by, uh, laboring.
You could take out a small business loan and open a store called Ruby's Slippers, which would carry only items of perfect feminine footwear. They would be pretty, comfortable, adaptable to any outfit. Soft enough to pad warmly around the house all day, but weather-prood enough to cross the wet lawn and look for ripe tomatoes. Perfect under pajamas, but also unembarrassing if the UPS guy knocks on the door. After wearing them all day while tending plants and poems, you could even keep them on when your husband came home and suggested walking to a restaurant for dinner!
You would make buckets of money selling Ruby's Slippers online, and host poetry readings in the evening.
Thanks, dear hearts, for the suggestions and business plans. And for laboring, Seana.
Dale, the lottery is my husband's business plan, too, bringing us endless delight/quiet desperation!
Cathy, this Ruby's Slippers thing sounds interesting. Let's talk.
I think my comment got eaten up by the great spam gobbler (I failed the word-veri test). Anyhow... as I was pondering...
I wonder how much more productive I would be if I didn't sit before my laptop in my pjs? Perhaps, before I plunk myself in that old swivel chair, I should resurrect my "real office" wardrobe and try writing with high heels on?
John Cheever dressed as if for a city job every day and took the elevator down to the basement, right? To write his short stories?!
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