PipesDreams

After nearly a decade of renting my apartment on Bloor, my corporate tenants decided to say “Sayonara” and have headed back to the Land of the Rising Sun.

A Japanese English-teacher recruiting firm, they no longer had a Toronto executive to fill the suite, so my other apartment is now open and available. Anyone looking for a one-bedroom with jacuzzi in Yorkville?

I’ll be renovating it during the month of May – painting the walls (volunteers welcome! beer incentives provided!), getting the carpet torn out and laminate flooring put down, etc – and all this means that the furniture has to go.

If you are looking for “pre-loved” furnishings, from 80s dressers to 50s sideboards to 70s sofas, I may or may not be able to help.
Check out my lacklustre, half-hearted Craigslist posting for more details: http://toronto.en.craigslist.ca/tor/fur/664433673.html

Feel free to lowball me on prices if you see anything you like. By lowball I mean “$10 and a case of beer”. I am also willing to accept barter for furniture, and in some cases possibly services, if those services include massage, cooking and/or butlering for me, or a really solid tarot card reading. Seriously, this crap all has to go within two weeks and I don’t own a van so I can’t drive it to Goodwill. Help me out here, people.

Getting back to my original story: my Japanese tenants left, but they didn’t quite clear everything out before they handed back the keys. Here are photos of a few things I found around the apartment today when I was cleaning out drawers and cupboards. Some of them are familiar to me. I grasp their purpose, even if I can’t read the packaging. Some of these items alarm and confound me. I have no clue whatsoever as to what they do.

I would be very happy if anyone with experience reading Kanji could help me to understand what the hell some of these packages are all about (ahem, , this means you).

	Ramen Noodles A selection of random deep-fried noodles.
	Miso Soup Mix Two packages of miso soup mix, with freeze dried spinach packets. Looks like space food for astronauts.
	Creepy Blue Bobble Head Creature I do not know or seek to understand what this creature’s purpose is. I simply wish it would stop slowly rocking its head back and forth inside its packaging. I don’t even think it’s battery operated, although the packaging is all in Japanese so I can’t be sure. Which means, clearly, that it is SATAN POWERED!
	No Freaking Clue Glue? Nail polish? Salad dressing? I just don’t know. I can’t translate a single word on the bottle except the number “90” shown on the front. I have sniffed it – the scent is innocuous, totally inoffensive and unidentifiable – and will say it’s not very viscous. That is to say, it’s runny like water, not thick like glue.
	Cleaning Product? Either these are small, ineffectual rags for cleaning my toilet, or I’m supposed to use them to make diamonds erupt from the porcelain bowl. I’ll never know until I try. Which will be never.
	Burning Demon Bunnies? Um, yeah. So this has rabbits on it. And their eyes are red. And they appear to be melting into a bed of hot coals. And they appear to be enjoying the sensation. Rabbit Dad is wearing glasses; I guess he’s myopic. Rabbit Son is giving us the “thumbs up!” The grotesque amount of plastic packaging encloses what appears to be a rag not unlike the one I can use to summon my toilet genie. There is no English of any kind on the packaging. Puzzlement grips me.
	What you MUST NOT DO with Dandan! This is the back of the Dandan package, which outlines, with clear and helpful graphic depictions, when and how Dandan should not be used. Do not use your right hand to operate Dandan. Do not open the Dandan package from right to left. Do not use Dandan while sitting at your desk. Do not use Dandan while asleep in your bed. Do not allow 3 dots and a square hovering above a bed of three parallel lines come anywhere near Dandan.
	Dandan, made by MyCoal Well, I’m stumped. It has English on it, sure, but I have no clue as to the purpose of Dandan. I know it’s made by MyCoal. I know something happens to it at 68 and 53 degrees celsius (which is pretty damn hot, come to think of it). And I know it is 13cm x 9.5cm. But as to which orifice you should insert it into, or what household object you can polish with it, or how you add it to a meal as part of a daily balanced diet…? I am Lost in Translation.
	Miso Soup Bowls An excellent accompaniment to the freeze-fried miso soup packets. Also, very attractive; I like the dark red colour and gold smudges on the covers.
	Rice and Rice Cooker This brings me great delight. I’ve always wanted a rice cooker, since I consistently FAIL at cooking rice in a pot. And having one reminds me of living with my beloved ex-roommate . Also, hey, free sushi rice to put in it. Now all I need is an industrial-sized vat of pickled sushi ginger.

It’s typical in an interview situation for the interviewer to question why you want the job, and where you would eventually see yourself ending up in the business, as a natural gauge of your motivation and ambition. But in an interview I went to last week, my interviewer phrased that question as “what do you want to be when you grow up?”

This is a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately, but nobody has really stuck it to me that directly since I graduated from university. What does one do with a Master’s degree in English? There’s certainly no prescribed career path for “person who likes to read a lot”.

Her question brought to mind Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. Specifically, the part where Rob Fleming, seedy anti-hero and record store owner, makes a list of his top five dream jobs.

Here’s Rob’s list:

1. NME journalist, 1976-1979
Get to meet the Clash, Sex Pistols, Chrissie Hynde, Danny Baker etc. Get loads of free records – good ones too. Go on to host my own quiz show or something.

2. Producer, Atlantic Records, 1964-1971 (approx)
Get to meet Aretha, Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke etc. Get loads of free records (probably) – good ones too. Make piles of money.

3. Any kind of musician (apart from classical or rap)
Speaks for itself. But I’d have settled just for being one of the Memphis Horns – I’m not asking to be Hendrix or Jagger or Otis Redding.

4. Film director
Again, any kind, although preferably not German or silent.

5. Architect
A surprise entry at number 5, I know, but I used to be quite good at technical drawing at school.

It has traditionally been very difficult for me to mentally divorce my desire for personal fulfillment in my work from my more material needs for money and my disinclination to spend 6 years on a PhD. But in the spirit of Rob Fleming, here is my current all-time, no holds barred, top five dream jobs. (list subject to change without notice)

1. Professor
I like the idea of lecturing to eagerly attentive students and having summers off work. Conferences and travel for “research” purposes sounds like a pretty sweet deal, too. Main obstacle to this being my lack of a doctorate. Teaching at a college or private secondary institution might be acceptable as well, but again, no teaching degree.

2. Writer
Fiction, preferably Giller and Booker prize winning adult contemporary fiction. I would also be extremely happy to produce popular mystery, fantasy, romance or children’s books. The promotional tours; the quiet, sedentary, reclusive work periods; the immortality in print. Yum. Downsides: years of obscurity, poverty, and near-certain alcoholism as a result of excessive self-reflection. Also, actually sitting down to write is a bit of a bugger.

3. Cantankerous bookstore owner
Used or new, with wooden aisles full of mystery novels, bought cheap and sold dear, books to the ceiling and in inaccessible places, sliding ladder on a brass rail attached to the bookshelves a must, spiral iron staircase a bonus. Downside: the business aspect. I hate doing taxes, accounting, etc. and the reality of shoplifters depresses me.

4. Comic book artist
It’s a niche market, I know, and hard to make any kind of living in. But how cool would it be for me to make another strike for women in this predominantly male industry by winning a Xeric award and self publishing my weird little book about the history of safety or chemistry or mermaids and then have it become a cult hit and get mobbed while trying to go incognito at cons. Bonus: might also lead to meeting Simon Pegg in person one day.

5. Audio book recorder
Having my voice and storytelling ability preserved for all eternity and getting paid for doing it. Narcissism is a problem for me, yes, but I also really enjoy reading out loud. Fortunately, I have a recreational outlet for this desire through LibriVox, where I am currently recording Jane Austen’s Persuasion.

All this woolgathering aside, I am seriously evaluating where I want to be, personally and professionally, in the next 2 to 5 years. Wedding bells and baby making don’t seem to be on the books, so it’s time to buckle down and get serious about work. Plus, career advancement means I might be able to afford a visit to Stephen and Skye in Japan and be able to go to Peru next year without having to live in a box and eat pasta every day for the foreseeable future.

There is a job posting at Cabinet Office right now that really intrigues me, but I have to decide in the next day or two if I’m going to apply. I think I will, but I have certain trepidations about the disruption of the delicate work/life balance that we all struggle to maintain being tipped deeply towards the “work” end of the scales, involving weekends and evenings camped out at the office, dreaming of checking e-mail while I am asleep, etc.

If nothing else, having applied for a part-time Master of Information Studies program at U of T in the fall (librarian studies) is a way of keeping my options open. I’ll know in a few weeks if I get in or not.