Ah, is there anything nicer than a little freak-out on a Friday afternoon?

I think I have of late been having a mid mid-life crisis. Well, a more sustained feeling of impending doom/what am I doing with my life-ness than usual at least, and since my quarter-of-a-century birthday is zooming towards me with the speed of a... a... a very fast, unstoppable, disaster of a thing, what else could it be. Things came to a bit of a head last Saturday night when I met up with Denise "Been To South America" , Elaine "Just Finished My M.A." and Steven "Hmm, Will I Do A PhD This Year Or Next Year?" for dinner and a few drinkies. After a few red lemonades in some sports/republican hub of a pub, talk inevitably turned to what everyone planned to do next.

I hate, hate, hate this line of conversation. I feel like such a lame-ass when it comes up because I am then forced to assess the lie of the land and think about my career plans [or lack thereof.] Mostly, I dunno what I want to do when I grow up :) but I would like to earn at least €60k base p.a. for doing something that I love [or as little work as possible, whatever. Truly, I am a person of integrity.] There are lots of jobs that I like the idea of. They're all the usual suspects, I think: I mean, who wouldn't want to be a best-selling author, or a fantastic magazine columnist, or a top beauty/fashion/magazine editor, an award-winning newscaster, or a superhero in the vein of Wonder Woman/She-Ra/Supergirl/Cheetara? Well, someone who abhorrs words or spandex mightn't be overly enamoured with any of those, I suppose. But I like the sound of all of them. I am wary of pinning my colours to the mast of any of these prospects for a number of reasons:

- They're all a bit pie-in-the-sky, pipe dream-y, aren't they? It's ok, you can say it. I know it, you know it, and they sure as hell know it.

- They're all kind of... I dunno, unworthy or irrelevant or something. I mean, I could pretend that when I talk about author-dom, it's because I have a burning desire to write something that would change the course of humanity or bring about world peace [or harsher penaties for parole violaters, Stan.] But I wouldn't fib to you like that.

- They're probably just like every other job when you do them day in and day out. I mean, wouldn't it be a b*tch to land what you think is your super awesome dream job and then discover it's actually crap in real life?

Anyway, most of the things I *think* I would like to do seem to involve writing. And since the only way to actually produce anything is to stop thinking and start doing [insightful, huh?] and the one time I did pull out some paper and a pen and actually scribbled down my random thoughts people stared as though I was a crazy lady [how could they could they tell without speaking to me?!], I think the time is right for the purchase of a laptop*.

* So that I can write in full view of others, thereby enhancing my career prospects, without apparently looking like a madwoman. The fact that I will get to play Solataire and watch 'Miss Congeniality' on DVD on the train is completely irrelevant...