Meanwhile, in an alternate life...

Singing along to: U2, No Line On the Horizon

At this moment, in this universe, I am not employed. Well, okay, technically I am not unemployed, but rather woefully underemployed. Still, I am unemployed in my chosen field. My chosen field, for the record, is: museums! Specifically (and this is a long-term career goal, here), I want to be the collections manager for an art museum. That is why I am currently a professional volunteer.

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is: unemployment. At least in this universe, because we all know that there are billions of other, simultaneous alternate universes out there, universes in which reality is totally different from what we think of as real. Universes in which I have a job.

Now, I hope I'm a collections manager in one of those other universes, but just in case I'm not, here are some other jobs I would settle for:

Astronaut: I know, is this a cliche or what? I think this one is an inevitable byproduct of too much Ray Bradbury, a writer more in touch with his inner wide-eyed eight-year-old than any other. Still: he convinced me. I want to see the earth from above, I want to touch the surface of the moon, orbit Jupiter, walk in zero gravity. I also want to live in a universe in which the slightest stray lurch does not make me motion sick. I suppose it should also be a universe in which I'm good at math and science. Although I know, objectively, that working at NASA, even being an astronaut, is not much like the Golden Age of Science Fiction made it out to be, I still get a little sentimental every time I pass the exit for NASA/Goddard on my way down I-295.

Horse Breeder/Trainer/Olympic Three-Day Eventing Gold Medalist: This one's for my inner eight-year-old, because this is pretty much what I wanted to be from the age of four till about twelve. (Heck, I still get excited every time I drive past the pasture with horses on my way to church.) I read every word that Marguerite Henry ever wrote. I wrote detailed life histories--veritable equine soap operas--for all my model horses. I can still remember the way the stable smelled. I miss all those daydreams sometimes.

Professional Driver on Closed Course: This is the one out of left field, but I have always thought it would be so cool to be one of those people who drives the cars in car commercials. Think about it: you get to drive the most souped-up version of any given car, really fast on awesome mountain tracks (a backroads roller coaster, if you will), without having to worry about someone else coming the opposite direction around that hairpin turn. (I am such a rule-follower that part of the appeal for me is being able to drive fast without having to worry about tickets.) All your friends would be so jealous whenever the car commercial came on, and you said real casually, "Oh yeah... I remember we filmed that one in Switzerland. Yeah, that's my head you see silhouetted in the window." Aww yeah...

Copy Editor: I know. How can this possibly be a dream job? But here's how I see it: I already do this job anyway. I can't read anything without scanning for typos and inconsistencies, and most of the time, I find them. If I'm going to do it anyway, I might as well get paid for it, right? There is a certain appeal in a job, however unromantic it might be, that I would be really good at. I mean, it plays right into my general forest-for-the-trees approach. (Forest for the trees? Heck, sometimes I can't see the forest for the leaves.)

So... what are you doing in the alternate universe?