PunkKittyDiddy

92 Degrees. Feels Like: What That Guy Nietzsche Said, About The Abyss Gazing Back Into You.....

I realize that trolling for writing jobs on assorted internet help wanted sites is a somewhat passive approach to career management.  On the one hand, I've landed some truly cool gigs this way, but the tiny part of my brain that has been placed in charge of "Career Development" (it's the itty bitty, microscopic segment nearly entirely obscured by the much bigger piece of gray matter designated with the task of, "Coming Up With Five Hundred Ways To Say Rhapsodic Things About Chocolate") knows that to really and truly set the world on fire, you have to be assertive and GO AFTER the big opportunities, rather than wait for them to come to you.

So that's what I'm gonna do, damn it! 

To start with:  I want the job writing the "feels like" blurbs for the temperature readings at Weather.com.  You know.  Like today's entry:  87 degrees.  Feels like:  87 degrees.

Far be it from me to cast aspersions at a fellow writer (OK, maybe a few teensy aspersions.....), but I could write circles around the schmuck whose work I just cited above! "87 degrees.  Feels like:  87 degrees?"  Seriously, dude?

To the editors at Weather.com, I would like to present a small glimpse into my unfettered creative prowess:

• 100 degrees.  Feels like:  raw magma, wrapped inside hellfire, wrapped inside some tinfoil and left on the smoldering asphalt in Yuma, Arizona.
• 110 degrees:  Feels like: the apocalypse! Wrapped inside some tinfoil and left on the smoldering asphalt in Yuma, Arizona.
• 30 degrees.  Feels like: Siberian winter, wrapped inside dry ice, wrapped inside real ice, placed on a floating glacier remnant and pushed out to sea, with only a blended margarita and a below-40-degree wind chill to keep it company.
• 67 degrees.  Feels like:  Reading Chaucer, while on Ambien.  
• 47 degrees, with heavy showers.  Feels like: what Charles Dickens said, about how "Black are the brooding clouds and troubled the deep waters, when the Sea of Thought, first heaving from a calm, gives up its Dead."
• 79 degrees.  Feels like: what Oscar Wilde said about how "Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative....."

(Maybe I should stricken those last few samples from my portfolio.  Best to get past my 90 day probation period before I reeeaallly start blowing their minds with heavy literary interpretations of storm fronts and low pressure systems......)

Boo-YAH!  How ya like me NOW, Weather.com?  Huh? 

(So, seriously....call me, OK?  I work cheap-ish.....)

Po-TAY-to, Po-TAH-to

Liberty.  Bon Voyage.  Ionic Sky.  Romantic Isle.  Rain Drop.  Aqua Breeze.  Deep Smoke Signal.  Sparkling Spring.  Sailor.  Sailboat.  Magic Spell.  Yacht Harbor.  Coastal Surf.  Ancient Pewter.  Evening Symphony.  Periwinkle Dusk.  Approaching Dusk.  Provence.  Soft Denim.  Flint Smoke.  

There sure are a lot of ways to say "blue."

I'm drowning in a sea of paint swatches, although I'm lovin' it.  This is my first house, and I'm gonna paint every corner of it, goddamn it.  (Well, once we move in......)  Doing the decorative sweep is one of those fun upsides to home ownership that I've sooooooooooooo been looking forward to - while it may not totally override the fear of financially committing to a money pit fixer, I realize that I gotta get my kicks where I can, just in case I'm showering in freezing cold water, thanks to the busted water heater (or finding myself free of the need to indulge in the formality of showering altogether, thanks to all the holes in the roof which shall be discovered when El Nino rolls into town), in between waiting for the coats of paint to dry.

And I've also realized that what I really want to be when I grow up is a paint namer.  Yes - I shall be a namer of paints!  How does one get into that line of work, anyway?  And is it deceptively high pressure?  In trolling through samples to cite in the opening paragraph, I deemed "Alluring Blue" not interesting enough to mention, although it does exist.  "Alluring Blue"?  That's the best someone could do?  Surely that came from an intern........or some senior partner in the paint naming game who is just days away from retirement and is phoning it in at this point.

I bet police detectives really hate it when they have to interview witnesses whose day job is paint naming.  That must needlessly complicate the process.

"Sir, can you describe the man who mugged you?"

"Yes!  His hair was a.....I dunno....Bitter Chocolate shade.  Maybe Iced Espresso, with a little Winter Mist around the temples......and his eyes were like this Laurel Leaf /Green Fig/Martini Olive color!  No, wait - French Tarragon!  They were French Tarragon!  His complexion.....?  Garbanzo Bean, pretty much.....maybe Powdered Snow....I couldn't tell for sure, it was a little after 6 pm and the skies were pretty Gunmetal Glory at that point - but he did drive off in a Florentine Clay hued minivan........" 

Then again, maybe police detectives appreciate that kind of attention to detail.

But seriously........I bet the road to paint naming glory is a long and winding one.  I will probably walk into my first interview at the paint naming company a little overconfident.  It will be a panel interview.  They will pull out a brown color swatch and ask me my thoughts.  "Po-TAY-to, Po-TAH-to!" I'll suggest excitedly.  They will confer quietly amongst themselves before the top guy says in a grim tone, "Thank you - that will be all."  I'll be floored....devastated, even....and I'll stumble blindly out of there into the nearest neighborhood bar.  I'll spend the next year laying drunk in a gutter.  Then some mysterious old guy will pick me up, dust me off and give me a great pep talk about my destiny.  I'll go into self-exile in some remote compound in the mountains of a foreign, untamed country far away.  The old guy - who is a semi-retired painter named Jeff - will put me through a series of excruciating training exercises, like Christian Bale went through in Batman Begins, only instead of training in martial arts, Jeff will jump out at me from behind the walls of assorted rooms within a fixer building, with unmarked paint cans in his hand, and I will have to instantly name the colors contained therein.  We will spend a decade fine-tuning my abilities.  It'll reach a point where I can come up with 5,000 exotic and clever names for every possible hue in the color spectrum.  While blindfolded.

I'll return to town and go to a second interview at the paint naming company.  They will again pull out that brown color swatch and ask me my thoughts.  Barely arching an eyebrow, I will say, "That is clearly Existential Angst on a Tuesday."  They will murmur excitedly.  I will be the next big thing in paint naming.

YES!  Finally, a cohesive career plan.

How To Make Money Hand Over Fist

So, I was all set to mock this Craig's List posting too:

Hand Models with Acting Experience for TV Promo

Hand models with acting experience?  Only in L.A..........plus it's for Playboy.  BUT there's no nudity involved.  Now I'm confused....they don't want the hands to appear au naturelle?  So, that means what?  Mittens?  Driving gloves?  Slightly naughty, but still tasteful, lacy fingerless gloves, offering just a hint of digit nudeness? 

My bafflement didn't stop there.  Oh, no.  What does a resume for hands with acting experience look like, anyway?  "Received immense critical acclaim after right hand portrayed the hand of Juliet which held the pivotal vial of poison in last season's Shakespeare in the Park......have booked numerous national commercials as featured talent, specializing in grabbing assorted dessert items in believably greedy fashion...........middle finger has additional experience moonlighting in assorted improv and performance art pieces set in various crowded parking lots...."

I stopped smirking once I scrolled down to what thespian hands apparently can earn - and fully clothed, to boot.  $750 a day?!?!?!?!  (And that's non-union?!)  Seriously?!  

Curse these unattractive German washer-woman man hands o' mine!  Well, I'm sure the tattoo in my general wrist region rules me out of a lot of mainstream roles beyond that of, say, "angry Goth hands in crowd," anyway.  On the other hand (so to speak), maybe, as is the case with character actors who ply their trade with their whole bodies, there's some niche work to be had here.  Maybe my appendages could make a perfectly decent living appearing in assorted psycho slasher flicks and women's prison movies.

Regardless, this ad brought to my attention that, at least in theory, my hands are capable of earning more for a single day's work than my brain ever has within a comparable time span.

Something's so very wrong with this picture. 

The Fly - The Opera......Yes, Really.

Nestled within the Los Angeles Opera Company's 2008-2009 season is an operatic rendition of David Cronenberg's The Fly.

Yes, really.

I might have to check that out.  It certainly raises the possibility of  yet another dream job prospect that I have never before pondered:  librettist of modern operas.  I could have cranked out lyrics for The Fly in my sleep!  I don't know what David Henry Hwang (the actual librettist in question) managed to come up with, but my version would have gone a little something like this:

Tenor:    I like it not one bit
            When I eat my own vomit!

Chorus:    He likes it not one bit
                When he eats his own vomit!

(What?  Is that too Monty Python-esque?)

I wonder if there's gonna be an operatic re-telling of, say, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and if so, where do I send my résumé.......?  
            

Ghostwriting For Dummies (And I Do Mean For Dummies)

I'm trying to think of additional and innovative and writerly ways to bring home more freelance bacon.  Enough with the trolling of CraigsList in the vain hope that I might stumble across a posting that reads, "Write stuff!  For money!  Lots of it!  Seriously!"  

OK.............maybe I'll continue to keep an eye out for that ad, but in the interim, it's time to get proactive and make my own opportunities!  I'm a smart broad....surely I can identify some unique niches that I might be able to caulk with my verbosity in exchange for a paycheck. 

So I was mulling over potential revenue streams while Fox Soccer Channel's nightly news was on in the background.  In fact, I think Wayne Rooney might have been attempting to speak at a press conference at the time.  Then a flash of inspiration walloped me with more brute force than an illiterate Cockney striker...... 

I should hire myself out to professional athletes who are looking to pen their autobiographies!!!!!  This is cake work!  I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner!  It totally removes the pressure to be brilliant.  All I really need to bring to the table is an elementary-school-level grasp of spelling and grammar, and maybe a taser gun to ward off any amorous Kobe-like advances.  Let's not overlook the drudgery of wading through and extracting the hundreds of thousands of superfluous "ya know?"s and "um"s and "like"s and "man"s and "hell yeah!"s, either.  But from there, it's just a matter of applying a really large font to whatever's left.  Easy peasey! 

To safeguard against the possibility of having to actually exert myself, I should come up with some sort of criteria by which I determine whether or not to take on a client.  Maybe I could enforce some sort of neck circumference standard (whereby the thicker the neck, the more desirable the client).  Unfortunately, Wayne Rooney already cranked out his tome, so there goes that particular walk in the park.  Still, kudos to whichever of my fellow ghostwriting colleagues managed to convince Rooney to fork over some major coin for this opening paragraph (and the remaining five paragraphs that constitute this 23 year old brainiac's life story):

I was nearly called Adrian.  That was what my father wanted.  A bit posh, I suppose, and doesn't quite sound like me.  I wonder if I would have had a different personality if I'd gone through life with a different name?

Join the club, Wayne.  I'm pretty sure if I'd been named Stanley or Eugene, I would be a highly successful accountant by now and would have avoided my current predicament of having to come up with all these fly-by-night, get-rich-quick schemes.........

Oh well.

Run, Forrest, Run!!!

This guy did it.  He found a way over the wall!  Or under it.  Or through it.  Whatever.  He's on the other side now.

I feel like Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption.  Even though it hasn't happened to me yet, I gotta cheer for anyone who gets all Tim Robbins-y and burrows through all kinds of literal and/or figurative gunk in order to emerge on the other side, TRIUMPHANT, albeit a bit stinky. 

YOU GO, JONATHAN COULTON!  From cube-dwelling code monkey to rock star????  (In case you didn't follow the link above, he quit his day job in a fit of midlife crisis-ness, and is now making a mighty fine living as a musician.)  Mad respekt!  (Am I making a total ass of myself, continually trying to use street lingo in a convincing manner?  I'm just so enamored of that silly little nugget from the popular vernacular:  "mad respekt."  It's so reckless - free-spirited, free-thinking, unfettered by the oft dictatorial rules of spelling in which letters are forcibly strung together in a very particular order and strong-armed into performing hard labor as a chain gang, doing all the dirty work that perpetuates the squeaky clean image of proper English usage......but I digress........)

Anyway, how cool is this guy?  I just wanted to pass along this uplifting tale of inspiration, so we could all start our weekends off on an optimistic note.......

Because it's never too late.

The Future of Correspondence Courses: Why Paralegal, When You Can Paranormal?

I decided that the topic of "dream jobs" deserves its own category here, because nearly every day I discover that someone has found yet another way to make a living doing the implausible, the absurd, and/or the hyper-specialized.  And man, am I envious. 

It kills me that no one - not my parents, not my teachers, no adult with an iota of influence - ever explained to me during those pivotal high school and college years that the world is chock full of fascinating and outlandish professions, and that you can often actually convince some fool to pay you to do fascinating and outlandish things for a living.  Perhaps you won't always be paid handsomely, but if you're having the time of your life, does that really matter? 

Here's another case in point:

PARANORMAL INVESTIGATOR

I used to watch X-Files religiously, so it's not like this career was utterly unheard of to me, but I had more or less relegated it to the fictional realm.  And once more, fate scoffs in my skepticism-riddled face.  (I'm more Scully than Mulder in many respects.)  However......I recently stumbled across an episode of Paranormal State on A&E - another entry in the whole documentary/reality show genre.  The premise? 

Some kids at Penn State University formed a club called the Paranormal Research Society.  They go check out allegedly haunted houses.  When I was in college, you joined a club if you liked to speak French, or play chess.  I think now of all the time I wasted, standing awkwardly around some folding table in a rec room, hovering over a plate of stale croissants and brie, only to occasionally pipe up with, "Uh..........pardonez moi, ou est la toilette?", when I could have been mucking around with ouija boards and wearing black nail polish and channeling Elvis, or at least Herve Villachaize, instead.  Damn.  But I digress.......   

Now, technically, if the members of PRS are still students, then most likely it's more of an extracurricular activity at this point rather than a paid profession - BUT a quick jaunt through cyberspace uncovers a fair number of post-graduates who are handing out business cards with titles like, "Professional Ghost Hunter" emblazoned on 'em.

Some people have all the luck.

I'm not saying I necessarily believe in ghosts.  But I think entering this profession could easily be a win-win situation.  Who's most likely to hire you?  People who are convinced their house is haunted.  So right out of the starting gate, you have a hell of a lot of leeway.  I'm pretty sure I could keep a straight face while saying stuff like, "The spirit I'm sensing here is angry with your presence, because she was a woman of wealth and taste, and you are a truck driver named Billy-Ray who leaves toenail clippings and empty beer cans strewn about her once-immaculate dining room.  Yeah....she wants you out.  Hey, this is a nice little 3 bedroom, 2 bath spread here.....what'll you sell for?"

Well, maybe that's more along the lines of what a paranormal psychic would say (and not necessarily an ethical one).  Paranormal investigators get to say stuff like, "Whoa, the magnetic reading in this corner of the attic is off the charts!" while carrying gadgets that randomly beep and light up.  (Everything's high tech these days, after all.)  But my point being, who's gonna prove you wrong?  I'm pretty sure it won't be Billy-Ray.  And on the off-chance that a real ghost does decide to speak up and expose your little scam, well............at that point you'll have bigger fish to fry beyond bilking some gullible homeowner.

Potential stumbling block:  you most likely have to allow yourself to first get bilked by someone who claims they can 'certify' you to become a paranormal investigator.  Oh, yes, certification is available - at a price, of course.  Yet perhaps this is a small price to pay in exchange for the privilege of adding the hallowed word, "CERTIFIED!" to "Professional Ghost Hunter" on that aforementioned business card.

I'm SO adding this to my list of potential post-stay-at-home-momming professions to contemplate. 

And many more to come, guaranteed.  Watch this space........

Career Regrets From A Girl Who Has Never Been Third Zombie From Left

I know people who claim they have NO regrets in terms of how they've lived their lives.  Me, being a maladjusted neurotic, I have oodles of regrets - a lot of them in the professional realm.  I've had some decent and respectable gigs, but there are so many truly fantastic jobs I wish I'd taken a stab at.  I'm talking about I-Can't-Believe-Someone-Gets-Paid-To-Do-That jobs.  I've got plenty of years left (I hope), and you never know, and so on, although admittedly many of these professional aspirations would seem slightly less silly for a twenty-something than, say, a late-thirty-something mother.  However, I'm not proud, so I'll admit to this kind of stuff.

I watched a bit of Resident Evil on TNT tonight.   Being a scary movie buff and all, one thing I'd love to have a go at is being a professional zombie.  How brilliant would be it be to get paid to show up, limping and dragging your feet, saying, "Uggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhnnnnn!" and rolling your eyes back into your head?  Yes, many of my former bosses would argue that I have cashed countless paychecks while behaving in exactly that fashion, but in my mind, it's not as fun as it would be if I were also missing half my jaw and clutching someone else's lower intestines in my hand.  And it would be pretty damn cool to see my name in the credits as "Third Zombie From Left," or maybe "Zombie Lady in Supermarket Asking For Price Check" or "Zombie Lady Trying On Jimmy Choos Stilettos in The Shoe Store, Post-Apocalypse."  I'm just saying, a lot of people get paid to screw around going "Ugggggggggggghhhhhnnnn!" all day, and I wouldn't mind being one of them.  At this point, I don't plan on leaving Z.'s side before pre-school, but maybe we could audition as a mother-daughter act?  "Zombie Mother Pushing Zombie Baby in Stroller" has a nice ring to it.  And Z. already does a mean, "Uggggggggghhhhnnnn!"

I also wouldn't mind starring in a SciFi original movie on the SciFi Channel.  Their original movies appear to have a total budget of $500.00, but that's part of their charm.  The SciFi Channel has carved out a whole niche with the Mutant Animal Running Amuck genre - they've done movies about mutant crocs, mutant sharks, mutant bears, mutant rats, mutant spiders, and probably even mutant parakeets.  They've also developed a subgenre of Extinct Mutant Animal Running Amuck, and they've covered pretty much every kind of dinosaur in that category, including the flying one, and saber toothed tigers, too.  Making an appearance as monster bait in these flicks does look like easy enough work, and good exercise to boot:  you just have to run through the woods going, "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" a lot while looking over your shoulder.  Then a big rubber or furry hand swipes at you from off-camera, some red paint gets thrown at the camera lens, and you yell, "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" in a higher octave before you roll around a lot and pretend to die.  I did plenty of this running around yelling "Ahhhhh!" and rolling on the floor when I was seven years old, and no one told me there was any money in it, so I moved on, stupidly. 

Nice work if you can get it.

Well, there are easily another 98 jobs on my "Things I Wish I'd Become When I Grew Up" list, but I'll save the rest for another time.  I've got some freelance work to tackle now, and the only time I seem to be able to get it done is while Z. slumbers at night.  Tiring, yes, but it's worth it because it means I earn the privilege of staying by Z.'s side all day, versus leaving her in daycare. The bonus is that, while operating on little sleep, I can perfect my Third Zombie From Left act.  Maybe I'll be discovered in the supermarket frozen food aisle tomorrow in mid-"Ugggghnnnn!"!  If not, at least I'll stagger away with those frozen peas I needed anyway......