What did you want to be when you grew up?

Kicky, you wanted to BE Dr. J and I wanted to DO Dr. J. Sorry Turquoise, but the man was BEEEE-YU-T FULL!

From the time I was about nine years old, I wanted to be a fashion designer. Period. That was my life. That was my world. Well. For the most part.

A jocky. I was 5'10" at age 12, so that got shot in the arse pretty quickly.

I thought it'd be cool to be a movie star. Lots of money, beautiful clothes, and a nice home up in the Hollywood Hills.

I'd marry a sexy rock star and we'd have great, passionate fights in nightclubs, that would wind up in all the tabloids the next day.

Then I'd go on all the talk shows and say how ridiculous that was, and how you can't believe what you read in the tabs -- even though it was all true.

Then I'd divorce the rock star and have a string of lovers. Every where I'd go, the paparazzi would follow me.

At the height of my fame, after I collected a few Oscars, I'd do a total 180 -- maybe marry a banker, move to a small town and raise a family.

Every now and then, they'd do a tribute to my film career on Turner Classic Movies, and they'd say things like, "Wonder what ever happened to Stray Cat?"

Shepherd. Or a little later, like, forest warden (same thing really).

Grew up to be a city kid tho.

abducted by aliens





still waiting

I met this girl in Berlin once who was an illustrator of childrens books. That evoked a long forgotten .. well, dream's a big word; fancy, perhaps.

Pity I cant draw for the life a me.

There was also a time, in high school (separate or after my Kerouac-infused imaginations of being a beat poet), that I kinda fancied myself one of those ivory-tower professor academics or such.

Half the time I was put off by how boring it'd be, but the other half I could totally see it. Just sitting there in my study, surrounded by obscure books, puzzling together the most arcane information, to ever perfectionise that rare, brilliant study I'd produce on that one ethnic group in the Caucasus no Dutchman had covered yet.. Only occasionally interrupted by adventurous travel through remote lands for field and archive study..

Yeah. And then at some point it dawned on me that academia is a world of cut-throat competition, which drives overworked, underpaid professors into a perennial, stressed out rush to meet the pressure of publish or perish, preferably having them do any actual research as part of some overarching semi-corporate team project, and forcing them to spend as much time lobbying, networking, managing and doing paperwork as actually reading and writing. That kind of put me off.

how do you know you havent already been?

His imagination would be further along.

Maybe we're the aliens..

When I was smallish (age 6 - 9) I liked the idea of being an opera STAR - the thought of sweeping around in grand robes all the time seemed pretty fine.

Then when I was in Grade 4 or 5, I decided I'd like to be a truck driver. They drove a lot and smoked cigars, which seemed ultimately cool.

For a brief period in my early teens I thought I'd be a great military/diplomatic corps wife, then I went back to the goal of being a truck driver.

~~~

I work with truck drivers now. Took me a while to get this close.

nimh: Maybe we're the aliens..

Our knowledge about evolution and the conclusions of anthropologists and paleontologists about human evolution on this planet has convinced me that we are the product of planet earth.

Of course...which is why I am not a lawyer now.

I thought it had to do with your 1.8 GPA in high school.