career

Dream Jobs are the Monday Meme


If you’ve read my post yesterday, you know that I am considering the idea of becoming a used book store proprietor. I had at one time thought that if I stayed in education I might pursue a library degree because I thought librarians had kick-ass jobs. No regular classes. No lesson plans. A room full of books and computers and their own offices to boot.

Okay, there was the “kid” thing. A school librarian does deal in students, but as they get older their needs are fewer and as far as I could tell the high schoolers merely used the library as a place to be rather than a place to work on being a successful student.

Used bookstores are far more attractive than new, but I can lose myself in either. If it were not for the awful hours I would have likely gotten stuck with I would have applied for a job at some of the local stores when BabyDaughter starts school full time this fall. I really can’t work weekends or nights because I am selfish and suffer from middle aged entitlement delusion I need to have that time free for husband and children.

I am still writing. Still waiting to hear from the Sci Fi magazine in Edmonton on my “call back” short story. When I was last at Barnes and Noble, I treated myself to a handful of sci fi and fantasy magazines to read and get writer’s guidelines and have plans to plague them with my prose because traveling for days on end gave me plenty of time to come up with story ideas – disturbing ones – but ideas regardless.

So my dream is to be a published writer and truthfully, I love sci fi/fantasy more than any other genre when it comes to writing. I found this great writer, Lavie Tidhar, in Apex. I found Ryck Neube there as well. To this end much more SF reading needs to be done.

But if I have to have a “day job” – there is no “hafta” in my life and I am luckier than most in that respect – then working in/owning a book store would be a dream day job. It even comes before owning a coffee shop which is primarily because I don’t like coffee at all and only frequent those places for teas. I have never heard of a tea shop. I suppose though you could be a tea shop that serves some coffees, but bookshop would be an ultra cool job despite the work. And there is work I am discovering in my research. However, who couldn’t hang out with books all day?

So here’s the meme: if money weren’t the issue (or tangible benefits of any kind really), what would your dream job be? Where? Why?

Remember you can write about it here as a comment or blog it on your own space. Don’t forget to link back if you go with the latter.

The Shop Around the Corner


I will admit to a grudging like that has grown into a genuine fondness for the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan film, You’ve Got Mail. I am a sucker, it seems, for Tom Hanks (some day I will explain that for the benefit of Mad) and for people who fall in love through the beauty of an exchange of words.

The film is actually a remake of an old Jimmy Stewart romantic comedy, The Shop Around the Corner from 1940 where two employees of a gift shop actively despise one another while unknowingly corresponding as anonymous pen pals. The Meg Ryan character in You’ve Got Mail owns a children’s bookshop called The Shop Around the Corner and she and the Hanks character meet and fall in love exchanging email under pseudonyms.

You might wonder why I bring this up. Read Full Article

The “moving” in Moving On


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I have been thinking, well more than that really, about moving to be with my boyfriend.

He lives in Canada and I had planned to spend the summer with him anyway, but he would like me to just come up with my daughter and stay. It is an idea with many things going for it. Primary is that I love him and want to be with him, but there are secondary benefits as well. It would force me to get serious about what I want to do career-wise. He tells me he is okay with taking care of me and my daughter, so I don’t necessarily need to have a job lined up before I come up. I don’t know how I feel about that.

Perplexed really.

I have worked near continuously since I was 15 years old. Even though I know women who do the stay at home thing, I never really imagined myself doing that. I could write. There is a writing program at the university in Edmonton. I could take a class. Work on my writing. That novel I know is in me. K would be in school half days and I would have time. Staying at home, I don’t know. He asked me, what I think, was an important question last night.

Am I changing just to please him?

I have talked about learning to cook. We were talking about doing laundry which led to the inevitable ironing that I basically choose to ignore. Would I cook if it weren’t for him? Iron? I don’t enjoy cooking now but there was a time when, even though I wouldn’t have called it fun, I did it. For my daughter’s sake more than anything, I know I need to start doing it again. And I do iron when I need to. I just don’t see the need very often and I doubt much that would change (and truthfully, I have never been able to iron dress shirts properly. Memories of my mother’s pursed lips as she inspected my attempts are not buried too deeply in my mind).

There is a lot that needs to be done before I can go and live with him though. I wonder if we are being realistic about the time table. I felt more confident, too, before I told an old friend the other night about what I was planning. She rained pretty heavily on the parade. Some of her concern was unwarranted and based on the fact that I have delibrately kept some people out the the inner loop of my life in the past 6 months, but she made a few points.

It would be easier to do this I think were it not for the scary times of the last few years. They have made me crave safety more than I have in the past. I am still a little fragile though getting better. And then there is my daughter. There is this tremendous sense of responsibility and need to protect her from…..well….everything, and I know it is not realistic. I can’t make life perfect and risk free for her, and I know her well enough to know that what is most important for her is that I be in a place where I am happy. Her happiness mainly derives from mine right now.

There is still a lot to think about, plan and do.