career fairy-syzing.

i sat in my room sipping mate, pondering subsequent moves. i'd been sick for what seemed far too long a time and was aching to snag a one-ticket - the shortest path to freedom for any foresight-forsaken fool. or perhaps not. my roommate had recommended a bus service that promised milk, honey and whiskey, and i sprung at the opportunity. who knows, he said, you might even be able to get a ticket online and save the trip to the dante's-bottom-drawer-that-is-Retiro. after filling out several simple details regarding height, weight, political views and marital status, i reached a drop-down button labeled 'occupation.' oddly enough, the only profession listed before clicking was that of 'actor.' something about beginning with an 'A,' i imagine - surely there there can't be many more.

when one fills out the questionnaire in missouri public middle schools intended to help rebellious, insecure and pimply 13 year-olds predict their five most likely future career options, they usually ask things like "do you like movies that take place in outer space?" - or - "do you like playing with fire" - or - "do you know how to operate a firearm and haven't the slightest inhibition from doing so?" - or - "are you better at catching or throwing?" ...by the end of the afternoon, everyone thinks they have a rough idea of who's going to be the veterinarian, the janitor, the nurse and the one-gram-possessing convict ironing out mississippi license plates til kingdom come. nonetheless, however socio-economically imaginative our teachers are taught to teach us, there must be some epistemological limits to the construction of the american dream. limits within which the dream can simmer, if you will. aim to be an astronaut, my dear, not a peddler of poems. dreams, as drifters will remind us, trade in different currency - and we do still live in the age of the nation-state. so when i clicked to fill out the paraguayan bus line's option under 'occupation,' little did i know to what range of professions their population could theoretically, in terms of bus transportation, aspire.

in the 'A's alone, we've any number of enticing life-commitments apart from acting (remember we're translating from the spanish) - and once you've gotten the tenth-grade broadway bug out of your system you're finally free to choose between astrologist, traffic cop, anthropologist, artisan, referee and astronomer. 'B's can rest assured they've both ballerinas and biologists in their court, whereas the 'C's will attest to the number of caddies, boat captains, cartographers, commentators and composers they've sent second class on the bus from Bs As to Asuncion. dandies dressed in 'D' will delight in the hordes of diplomats, book binders, private detectives and DJ's that are lining up for the hell of it, whereas 'E's must content themselves with excavationists, ethnographers, engineers trained in explosives and escape artists. oh, fret not, dear reader, there's more. our trusty conductor is also expecting an appearance from a certain hydrologist, another lithographer, an expert ice cream man and an regionally renowned maker of fine cheeses. the miner shall sit next to the model, whereas the urban landscape gardener will have to make due next to the shepherd's bucolic stench. of course, we'll leave the geneticist to fend off the philosopher, behind whom we'll cram the nutritionist with our cantankerously corpulent opera singer. meanwhile, the notary public's playing cards with the pizza delivery boy as the painter makes faces behind the pilot's back (that luckily only the doorman can see). the radiographer's taken to the toilet - and only time will tell when the supreme court judge and the sociologist will finally come to blows. the shoemaker's tossed in the towel and sought a well-earned siesta - which wasn't easy as the wet-whistled welder noisily weaned the gravedigger off his gargling gourd. have it as you will, there wasn't a peep out of the vigilante - who sat peacefully at the back of the bus, pondering his subsequent move.