The stupid thing is that because I live a freelancey, laissez-faire, contract-to-contract and travel lifestyle, sometimes I fantasize about taking a regular job! I browse the non-profit job listings, thinking, "Oh, wow. Imagine my life if I had that regular 9 to 5 job! I would have stability. I would have an opportunity to really set up some useful systems and programs. I could get maternity later, if I wanted it. Etc. Etc."

I want to be a palm reader. It's basically like Ask Metafilter, but you get to wear a swirly skirt, a lacy shawl, and gold hoops. And people pay you.

If I won the lottery and could wipe out all my law school debt, I would go back to school to get my MFA and write poetry for a living and maybe teach creative writing at a college.

My current fantasy is getting this job I applied for in the new administration. I've been calling it my Carolyn-Kennedy-West-Wing-Aaron-Sorkin fantasy. (The actual job is not at the White House but in my mind I'm trading banter with Josh Lyman.) So far it's been radio silence, so I have no idea if I am even on the list. Last week in my mind's fantasy I get the job; this week I am sooo laughed off the stage (that is, not even close to getting the job).

My other fantasy is getting away from all clients forever. They're so neeeedy, doncha think occiblu and others with clients??!! In this fantasy I am a legal historian, going through dusty archives of legislative history, ancient legal rulings, minutes from state constitutional conventions, and so on. I write a book, somehow it makes a lot of money. (Yeah, I know, a rich legal historian -- it's a fantasy, damnit! Leeme alone.)

Other fantasy jobs:

One-year post in New York City. I don't care what the job is so long as it's a year in New York City.

Running or helping to run a totally cool civil rights-y, disability rights-y writin' and readin' and relaxin' and talk-talk-talking camp/retreat. Somehow out in the wilderness but totally accessible to all. Library, computers, fireplace, trails, seminars, workshops, hook-ups.

I love this game (I'm usually playing it by myself).

Hah. I play this in my head all the time.
Being an ecologist is great (wouldn't change a thing if I had to do it all over). No 9-5, work is what I want to study, and I write up what I find interesting ...

But I hate the uncertainty surrounding my funding. Will I have a paycheck in a year?

So my alternate profession would be a wildlife guide for wealthy tourists in the Okavango delta. I can tell them about all the species (not just charismatic ones), and all the cool ecological interactions. I'll still be able to do experiments in my downtime. Win win.

I still want to be a tomato farmer. I'm not sure what it says about me that my "run away and join the circus" fantasy is also a job goal.

(The actual job is not at the White House but in my mind I'm trading banter with Josh Lyman.)

Oooh oooh oooh, you and Josh Lyman should totally come stay in my hotel!

mudpuppie, tomato farmer seems like a good goal. Fantasy job as job goal is probably healthy.

And now I want everyone else's fantasy jobs too.

An infinite supply of money and influence to put on whatever crazy scheme is in my head (Lets reprint all the Great Books! Illustrated! Given away for free! An HBO miniseries adaptation of the Crimson Petal and the White! A full stage production of Salome with real jewels and silk! ). I basically want to be a Baron.

Itinerate musician in the Carolan mode. Except by bicycle.

I want to have a little farm with a few goats and chickens and a pony and make lots of yummy food with veggies and herbs and goat cheese. Somehow, this makes me enough money to travel extensively and hire someone to mind the farm while we're gone.

Wow kodama, you're the only other person I've met who thinks O'Carolan is as cool as I do!

Lighthouse keeper. Firetower watchman. Caretaker for rich folks vacation properties.

I like being left alone. With broadband, of course.

Actually, being the guy who keeps continuity & produces background text for Bethesda Softworks' The Elder Scrolls games would be pretty cool, too. I could handle that.

Art gallery owner, is one fantasy job idea.

(I actually enjoy selling. Who knew?)

I want a scrap yard, some cutting machines (laser, water, plasma, sign, all of the above), a big ol' CNC table, and a kick-ass CAD program. A serger would be a nice, too. The scrapyard should be adjacent to mudpuppie's and Specklet's farms, and down the street from The Whelk's house.

specklet, we're the SAME!

I'm gonna be a coffeehouse poet.

I already got the sensitive-new-age-guy glasses.

Now all I need is a poem.

Ah, I feel a burst of inspiration:

Bad people are out there
In our
world doing bad
things.

Rise up, good people!

Overthrow the bad people!

Whadya think? I'm gonna change my name to Jason Keats, you watch.

Will you combine the poetry with a cupping?

Writing horror short stories, for which I picked up $65 worth of books last night to give it an actual go. Yeah, this pretty much negates my anti-fiction tirades of the last couple weeks.

This is also a great excuse for playing my vast collection of appropriate mood music.

I want to work in the tattoo piercing shop and be a huge freak.

Custodian of a property/weather station/what-have-you on a remote island (with broadband or other internet - tropical or arctic tundra irrelevant), or of my Gloucestershire farmhouse making cheese. I've never done it before, but I think I'd make a good cheese-maker (blessed are they).

Or a piano lounge/ cocktail bar/ cabaret singer, in a slinky sequinned dress atop a baby grand singing "The Man I Love".

Learning how to make the cheese of my ancestors in some edelweiss-dotted alpine valley abounding with rushing glacial streams and gentle brown cows.

The civil service job I had at 21. I grew to hate it and quit as soon as I finished my bachelors degree after almost 8 years. But the last few years have been tough for me and I find myself thinking all the time about how if I had stayed I would have a great deal of seniority now (able to choose a good schedule), the steady income (big salary raise few years after I quit), the health insurance and best of all, 6 years from now I would have been eligible for a pension at 50% of my salary and still young enough to pursue another career. Painful to think about. That has been my daydream, that I never quit the job I had.

I've always kinda liked the idea of being a helicopter pilot. Or maybe just a helicopter? Nah, I think I'd go with a helicopter pilot. Not in war-type stuff, like air ambulance, or bush pilot stuff. I think that'd be cool.

i made a circus. Bread and circus, people. Bread and roses.

I want to work in Antarctica or Nunavut -- not forever, just a year or so.

I also want to be a scientist, but I'm working on making that one a reality.

I actually work for a circus, but presently on a contract-only basis. I wouldn't mind doing it full-time. Going one better, the real fantasy is that I'd be in it. But one doesn't usually start training in high-risk acrobatics at 32, so I'll make do with staying behind the scenes.

(This has given me an unfortunate predilection for dating/sleeping with acrobats, though. Mmm, acrobats...)

I want to be a librarian in a fancy old library with really old and beautiful books that you need permission to see, and only the finest scholars will be able to gaze upon these books under my care.
Or maybe work as a Smithsonian culture-gatherer. I don't know what the official title is, but I met one once, and it sure seemed like a kick ass job - traveling around the world, recording instances of regional culture?

Where do I start?

- librarian
- owner of a cat rescue (like this)
- hobby farm owner (similar to Specklet's)
- Egyptologist

I have actually had some of these jobs and caretaker (to rich people's houses, or something similar) is the one I'd like most to return to. Library jobs are great except for (the public/colleagues/the pay/no one can use a computer) and caretaker jobs are great except for the can't leave" part. Running a website is delightful except you get no time off except time like this which isn't really time off. Lifeguarding is good but it stresses me out because I'm always afraid someone will die and I will fail to save them. I have a friend who is a clown in a travelling circus in Japan and he likes the work, but man it's not for everyone.

I would like to be a live-in librarian in a big library that is somehow quiet even though it's on the outskirts of a really bustling city. When I wanted to go someplace else I'd just lock the door to my living space and go. I sort of can't imagine having a job where there was a part of my waking life where I wasn't at work. This isn't necessarily a bad thing.