June 15, 2002

Lately I'm preoccupied with learning a trade. Doing what you really love for money is supposed to be some miracle career goal. But the problem is that if you're doing it for money, you're usually doing it for someone else. And doing what you love for someone else is just kind of a bummer & takes all the joy out of it.

Maybe I just have too strong a suspicion of work & I can't really enjoy something if I can't keep it to myself.

Whatever the source, I've known for a long time I need to find some kind of reliable, non-webby, not writing trade to pay my way and keep me level. I've flirted with a lot of ideas, from service wage slave to dental hygienist to chef (although that would probably ruin cooking for me). I actually abandoned hygienist before ever honestly considering it, as there's no local dental school and I don't want to move.

My current fantasy job is auto mechanic.

In my imagination, I'd be a natural. I appreciate intricate order, interchangeable parts, industry. I'm good with my hands. I enjoy fixing and assembling things. I'm smart. Of course, the only remotely mechanical thing I've ever done is tuning up my lawnmower.

And I know next to nothing about how cars actually work, but I figure that can be learned. And it would certainly be more straightforward and satisfying than my more obvious paths of learning, namely code. And more sitting on my ass all day in front of a flickering screen just doesn't fill me with tingling anticipation.

Next time I'm in Houston, I'm going to make my dad show me how engines work.

(Dad talked me out of my new imaginary trade, so my career crisis continues. I need to just admit this whole obsession with learning a trade is just an excuse to go to school/training, thereby forestalling the inevitable horror of finding a real job. Maybe I should write a book. What happened to all those literary agents who were courting me before? I think I've lost my cache.)

06.08.02