Until that day comes, you can count on me for your regular dose of Woe is Me, Adulthood Sucks. In today's edition, I fantasize about the kinds of unsustainable career paths that would make me really, really happy.
Jobs I Wish Existed
Children's Book Re-Illustrator: Wouldn't this be fun? Imagine remaking all of the Madeleine books in the style of Eric Carle. Or a watercolor version of Make Way for Ducklings. Or a series of woodblock prints for A Snowy Day! If it weren't for those pesky copyright laws, I'd probably drop out of school and set up an Etsy shop for this sort of thing asap.
Dessert Expert: Not an expert on actually making desserts... just everything else that's dessert-related. I sincerely think the world could benefit from an official dessert classification system, the kind that sorted everything into families and subcategories. I don't even know which would be the best way to start with a project like this. Maybe sorting into Cream-based, Dough-based, Fruit-based, and Chocolate-based? Or Hot vs. Cold? Liquid vs. Solid? History of Dessert is a whole other topic that I think merits some more attention from contemporary academics. How did the Dessert-on-a-Stick phenomenon progress from fried Twinkies to pie pops? Which factors distinguished breakfast pastries from after-dinner pastries? Who was the first person to combine bacon with chocolate and why haven't they received a Nobel Prize? These are questions I would gladly spend the rest of my life answering.
Amelie Gillette's Intern: Pretty self-explanatory.
Used Books Collector: The problem with working in a used bookstore is that once you sell a used book, you can't ever get it back. A well-meaning customer could walk out with your favorite annotated poetry anthology or your most beloved underlined paperback. And when that happens, there's no restocking your shelf with copies of the same book worn in all the right places or filled with a stranger's neat, grey cursive. It's kind of the complete opposite of making a living, but my dream job is basically to buy a house and fill it with old books that smell like dust and time. Not too unreasonable, right?
