Things I don't do for a living but have always wanted to try

One of the things I like best about blogging is other bloggers. Oh sure, I read some of the big blogs; I like snarky and/or informed commentary about the news, but it's the smaller, quirkier blogs I like best. Reading about the lives of people I'd never know about otherwise, looking at pictures of their dogs, knitting projects, or the little sparkly things they put on their fake leg just for fun. I'm not going to single out any particular blog or post at the moment, because I'm very tired and I have to get up extra early tomorrow. But I try to add most of my regular stops to the blogroll over there [on the right], so have a look around. It's not all-inclusive, and some of the links may be obsolete -- I have a different set of bookmarks at work than at home, and usually only the ones at home make it to the blogroll. So just because it's not on that blogroll doesn't mean I don't read it.

Yeah yeah, I'm aware that there are portable bookmarking applications and suchlike, but I can't be bothered at the moment. I'll get around to it. And it's not like I read any of these every single day, much as I'd like to do so. Plus if my site counter thingy is anything like accurate, there's not a lot of you using my blogroll. Please let me know if I'm wrong, but it looks like most of the outgoing traffic from there is me.

Anyway, I was reading Sara's post from yesterday, wherein she named some of the bloggers she was following for the month, fellow NaBloPoMo participants all. Some of them I'd read before, some were new to me; all were good and interesting.

I have to clear one thing up, though. I know Sara only via blogging; we've never met in person. She has this really interesting knack, though, for reading my mind. I'm intentionally kind of vague about what rocket surgeons like myself actually do for a living, so I'm not expecting people to know or to guess what it is. Being a princess is not a requirement, but the tiara does help. I worry, though, that in my vagueness I am mis-representing myself. Because it's twice now that Sara has attributed a profession to me that is not in fact mine.

See, a while back she described me as a librarian, which I found terribly flattering. And in fact I've always secretly kind of wanted to be a librarian, but I have kind of a virulent mold/mildew allergy that keeps me out of the stacks in any respectable (i.e., not electronic) library; also my university's undergraduate library degree program closed during my first semester there, before I'd gotten round to declaring a major or anything. They subsequently replaced it with some kind of Information Science degree, but it was too late: I'd already gotten involved with Linguistics. And you know what a slippery slope that is.

And some of my best friends are in fact librarians; I like to think I sort of fit right in among them.

So I cleared that up in the comments, and whaddya know, yesterday she described me as a former professional baker. Which is another one of those dreamy things I've always wanted to be. I have cooked in a couple of restaurants, and have in fact baked yummy things as part of my job: scones, muffins, cheesecakes (which I detest), pies, fabulous lemon-herb tarts, pound cakes, etc. But I've never actually worked in a bakery, alas.

On the other hand, it's not too late. It's entirely possible, in fact, that I need a new career. The rocket surgery racket ain't all that great these days.