I would really really like to be a gardener. I feel that way even when I'm not fed up with my current job. I think that when I finally get a place with a garden again, and can go back to working in it after work, I will feel better.

lighthouse keeper.

'spode...Right before I stumbled into the exciting world of IT, I almost became a landscaper/gardener. I worked a summer job with a woman who had started the local college's program, and she really knew her stuff. I loved it. It was so cool being in the earth all the time. But then, someone offered me lots of money and was willing to let me learn on the job, and so began my IT career...

Harborkeeper. Or maybe the pilot of an icebreaker.

No, I got it. Ringside cutman.

evil corporate whore

It would be really cool to sell my photography for teh cash. I imagine I would have to take lots of pictures of lighthouses, though. Hey, maybe I could take a picture of Shane's lighthouse!

Would you be interested in aerial shots at all, selfnoise? I would be more than happy to take you up in my helicopter.

I would like to be a SAHF, with a side of web design and poetry.

Perhaps this could be a corollary of the mecha housemates thread...this one will lay out what we shall do while not doing our mecha-chores.

I would like to be a used bookstore owner and a chef in an illegal micro-resturant on the second floor of same. Also a lighthouse keeper, harborkeeper, houseboat rental agent, woodchopper, landscaper and perhaps any job where my cheeks would be ruddy from chilly fall weather and things smelled like woodsmoke to a reasonable degree. Also the publisher of a well funded but essentially insolvent tiny genre fiction outfit.

I'd like a houseboat please, wood. Painted streaky dark green and blue. Woodstove. Listing. One electric socket.

Richat - Totally. We can take aerial photos of Shane's lighthouse! It's like printing money!

Actually, Wino reminded me of my REALLY unrealistic job fantasy, which is to own a massive used bookstore that only sells SF/F.

I have often thought I should have studied languages and become a translator.

I'd quit my job, and I'm doing so. Today. I posted asking for help about it last night.

I should mention my other dream job when I was younger...I wanted to own a small venue. My city lacks a venue that is intermediate in size, and as a result, we miss out of lots of tour stops.

So, I would have a place that could house these artists, but it would also have a room of appropriate size that it could house a hootenanny/house concert type thing for travelling artists as well. Essentially, anyone who was passing through could use the PA for a hat-passing show.

Licensed, etc. In fact, if I ever had the dough, I would still do this.

Really unrealistic is my stock in trade. Sf&f used bookstores are tough because so much of the stuff is in el shitto pulp paperback that doesn't hold book buyer smell, feel and sight lust and thus has crap resale value. Trade paperbacks NOW!

This has been on my mind a great deal lately. I love what I'm doing now, but I long to do it in an environment that doesn't seem modeled after The Lord of the Flies. I love the people and the constant exposure to new information and the challenge of getting things just right. In the larger scheme, however, between my sciatica and the angry metal in my leg, I'm going to have to find a new take on gainful employment in the near future. It's a little daunting.

Adventurer, or possibly Rich Guy.

yeah, change mine to vigilante bon vivant

hey, I do someone's ideal job! (translator). In my lonely moments, though (I work alone which is mostly ok) I sometimes dream of playing professionally in an orchestra which only does really good music (judged by my criteria, naturally) and which tours around Europe but only by train. and which pays well and reimburses/pays for travel. Also which encourages its players to form smaller groups to play smaller-scale music for fun and profit.

Re the working alone thing - that probably doesn't help in combating my occasional feelings that I'm a fraud and am no good at this and that I've no right to be charging for my services...

I'm actually in the middle of reinventing myself and creating some kind of new career and it isn't as much fun as it sounds.

However, in the perfect metaverse, I want to be a writer, or own a bookstore cafe, or be a potter or a rock n' roll star. A bookstore owning, pot making, guitar playing published writer. Yeah. And in Mecha Town we can all spend our days ambling from one bookstore to the next and our money will move along with us, in a perfect circular economy.

It's true MGL, so far we have mahy bookstores, and clearly will need a harbour. Luckily, my helicopter doesn't need much space for landing and taking off. Perhaps I can have a landing pad on the roof of my bar.

I'd like to own and manage a mom-n-pop type motel out in the desert, or in Florida. (Or, okay, anywhere.) One like this.

Chef, gardener, animal rights activist, porn star, in no particular order.

I wish I could do 99-100% of my helpdesk work from home. That would be pretty sweet.

Used bookstore owner would be pretty cool, but impoverishing and unrealistic.

I wouldn't mind being independently wealthy enough to live on my current, smallish income without having to actually hie myself to some physical place every day.

Having extra money atop that for giving away to homeless and impoverished folks would be awesome.

Given either of the two 'independently wealthy' scenarios above, I doubt my behavior would change much. I'd still be an unfocused, unsufferable know-it-all hellbent on just sponging up vast quantities of useless information.

I'd travel more, for sure. It'd be nice to just put everything in storage and go tool around the country on Amtrak and Greyhound and not have to worry about holding a job. And riding Amtrak and Greyhound with extra pocket money would be an awesome way to make people's day.

Every time I've travelled Greyhound I've wished I had a lot of extra cash flow just so I could buy some poor, bored kid a good book, or a CD player or something. Or some poor bastard a hearty sandwich, or a ticket home to their folks.

In fact, there we go. I'd choose "street level micro-philanthropist" as a new career if I could get funded by someone who could afford it.


I have a friend who once inhereited a bunch of money. The next week he went and talked to this homeless guy he saw a lot at his local donut/coffee joint, and asked him "What would it take to get you off the street?"

The guy protested, of course. When you're homeless you're defensive and self-justified a lot.

My friend said "No, no, I don't care about that. How much money would you honestly need to get back on your feet? 'Cause I know you want to, we've talked about it before."

The guy stopped and thought about it for a bit, then said "$1000. I'd get a motel, some decent clothes from a thrift store, a visit to the dentist and then I'd get a job."

"OK, then. I'm going to give you a thousand dollars. You don't have to repay me, you just have to do what you say you're going to do."

Two months later, he sees the guy again. In a suit. He got a job as a teacher, as he had once before. The guy cried, profusely thankful. A month or two after that, he paid my friend back.

The poor bastard had been homeless for years. It didn't matter how he got there, really. It could have been drink, or drugs. It could have been bad luck and bad timing. Or mental illness. Or a combination of the above. But for all those years he had just been trying to survive, and trying to get a big enough stake rolled up that he could get back out.

But for that sort of micro-philanthropy to work properly, I think you'd need someone who has been there for it to work, someone with a decent judge of character, someone who knows how it works out there on the street. My friend had been there, so, I guess that's why it worked for him.

Oh yeah, also I've always wanted to be Satan.

well, that just ruined My day
you're not even satan?

Heh, MeCha Town will be a town full of very well read, caffeine-addicted slackers who wander out to the harbor lighthouse for fun.

Hrrmmmm. I feel like we're halfway there.

I'm tryin', I'm tryin', I'm tryin', I'm tryin', I'm tryin', I'm tryin', I'm tryin', I'm tryin', I'm tryin', I'm tryin', I'm tryin', I'm tryin'!

I think we are 'spode. It's also nice to know that we have the archangel thing covered too.

I propose a map of mecha town be drawn up.

loquacious: there was a recent Gladwell New Yorker piece on the homeless issue that talked about this very idea: that it would actually be cheaper to do that for many homeless people than to continue letting them fall back on (and drain the resources of) police, emergency rooms, and soup kitchens.

As to change: I'm exasperated and bored by my job. If I didn't have to have this job, I'd write. I'd write all day long, in between going and finding things to write about. I'd get my PhD.

I wanna marry a lighthouse keeper
And keep him company
I wanna marry a lighthouse keeper
And live by the side of the sea
I'd polish his lamp by the light of day
So ships at night could find their way
I wanna mary a lighthouse keeper
Won't that be OK

But besides that, I really love my life. I like working from home and hanging with the kid. Last night she told me that I was a great mom because I love her lots and teach her lots of things. I'm still beaming.

Innkeeper in a very remote area of the NW or the NE of the US.
Or just be ........
Paid to get lost.
Paid to rock out.
Paid to draw.
And, sometimes I think about being a professor / teacher / instructor of things to peoples of the college age.

On preview: jrossi4r you are a great mom! Sometimes when I read MetaChat I'm impressed with all the moms and dads here and I'm all: I wish so and so was my mom (or dad) when I was growing up.

....I like all that I do now for the most part, too.

Aw, thanks safetyfork!
*Beams a little brighter*

When fed up: I want to be a housewife. I want to have a beautiful little house and two beautiful little kids and a really amazing garden. I want to cook and clean and look after my kids and yard. And I want a partner to do this with. (This will actually happen someday.)

What I should have done (perhaps): Really gone for my musical career. I could have been singing my own stuff, touring Europe with my good friend/most amazing guitar player I've ever seen Matte.

Carpenter, or tomato rancher. Good tomatoes, not those horrid grocery store things that they grow around here.

A librarian, or a baker.

For a while, a friend and I made half-joking plans to someday have a combination bakery/bookstore (sticky pages and all). Since the bookstore thing is pretty well covered, I'll just go with mecha town bakery.

i'd like to make stuff and things
and put stuff and things together
like people
which is what i do
i'd just do it with a lot more stuff
and people