Today’s “I hate computers and I’m quitting tomorrow!” occupation:

Bathhouse attendant

Nothing more complicated than “Here’s your Chapstick and your towel.”

Wait a minute, I just realized that I know nothing about bathhouses. Do they give out towels?

Actually, I don’t want to know.

I need a beer.

(After giving it more thought, I think the O’Neill thing definitely stems from MacGyver. Although, watching MacGyver now, he had Really Bad 80s Hair. *cue the Patty and Selma comments*)

In keeping with this theme, and with a heavy spattering of my already confessed obsession with muscles, today’s “I hate IT! Need to escape!” profession is:

Comic Book Artist

I’m in awe of these people. Frankly, I’m in awe of anyone who can capture a fair degree of realism using some arcane melange of hand-eye coordination and depth perception. I’d love to learn how to draw but it scares the freakin bejeezus out of me.

I’ve been drawing celtic knotwork and illuminating text for a fair while but when it comes to trying to create something remotely realistic, or reasonably representational, on paper it just doesn’t happen. There’s a mental block that tells me that I don’t have the technique, or the eye, or the practice, or the tools.

They’re all excuses of course.

I’d love to find an art course and learn how to draw people. There are colleges around Ottawa that have animator / cartooning / art programs… there have to be.

If I leave the comfy world of #!/usr/bin/perl, and become the massage therapist I want to be then I’ll have an excellent grasp (if you’ll pardon the pun) on where the muscles go and how they fit together…

I’ll just need to learn how to draw ‘em.

I want to be a massage therapist. I think I’d be good at it. Thanks to the genes, I have strong hands, they’re more like bear paws… they’re rarely cold… they don’t get tired or cramp up.

Now, I’m going to say this… don’t get excited…

I like muscles. Mrowr.

Stay down. Good dawg. Not in a full-fledged mrowr manner… I like watching people… the way they move… the grace and strength that people take for granted… I find the process, how it all fits together and just seems to work, mesmerizing. One of these days I’m going to get pummelled for gawking at someone I shouldn’t.

Putting aside all the introspective crap about how I like helping people, the benefits of massage on physiological and emotional levels, the relaxation and healing that comes just from being touched, blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda… which all floats close to the surface of the discussion, of course… I just wanna touch every last one of ‘em.

I see people (who I may not necessary include in that blanket statement I just made) all day, every day, slouched over desks and in pain they may not even realize they’re feeling. Spend a minute dealing with their shoulders and they drool on the keyboards.

(An interjection from the IT side of the brain: drooling on keyboards is NOT a good way to promote the long life of your peripheral.)

ANYWAY, today’s “run away screaming from IT” wannabe career path is probably just a reflection of the fact that my upper back is telling me it’s time to get up and not look at a computer screen for a few hours.

Where’s my beer.

Sure, you get to wear your own spandex suit; and, you have your own theme music. I *know* you’re thinking, “How cool is that?!?” It’s not. Even though Edna says that capes are a bad idea, I’m stuck with mine. My theme music, catchy though it may be, comes from a deck that I have to cart around on, well, a cart.

I’m always carrying around a cellphone; reading e-mail and pouring through log files in a manner I’m sure is well documented in the Christmas catalog for Shrinks. I can tell you EXACTLY how those becited little electrons cart your electronic mail around the world; which vowels to leave out of most UNIX commands; and, even better, why the 3D rendering engine in your favourite online fantasy roleplaying game isn’t as good as it could be.

As you can imagine, I’m a hoot at parties.

I’ve been hooring myself out doing IT work since I was 14 in some form or other. I’m good at it but I’m tired. But… there’s always a but… it’s good money.

So instead of quitting my job, moving to someplace warm like Upper New York State, and becoming a bum, I’m creating this new category. As waking life gives itself over to zoning out while Microsoft Minutes count down to and away from zero, any time a new career path I’d like to follow pops into my head, here it comes… if for the sole reason that when I forget everything I know about computers, I’ll have a list of things to try out.

Who knows… maybe one day I’ll actually hop tracks. Until then, I’ll just flex my addictions and hope time passes more quickly… and that nothing crashes.