Friday, June 25, 2010

A girl can dream

Do you ever find yourself daydreaming about what you’d do if you could escape the grind of the 9 to 5? I know I do.

As much as I’m a lover of routine – that’ll be the control freak in me – I find 9am to 5pm (or actually 8.30am to 5pm in my case) a tad too restrictive. Perhaps it’s because I’m not an early riser, work takes up a big chunk of the day and then there seems to be so little time for everything else.

Hmmm. So what would I do if I could work my own hours? Having read an online article about how author Carole Matthews spends her day, I have to say I am pretty envious. She rises, replies to Facebook fan mail (fan mail! All I get on Facebook are messages from the NUJ), takes the dog for a walk to fetch the paper, writes for three hours, lunches over the day’s headline news and then continues to write for another three hours in the cosy little office she’s set up at home. Bliss!

If I had my way, and money was no object, I’d move to New York (or the seaside maybe?) and open up a cosy little bookshop like the one Meg Ryan has in You’ve Got Mail. I’d set aside a writers’ corner where inspired writers could come and drink coffee and work on their masterpieces surrounded by books and book lovers. And I’d write myself, in between reading; I’d work on my novel, I’d write a blog (which had more substance than this one does, this is just my ramblings) and I’d take the dogs for a walk to get some air – Ralphie the cocker spaniel and I’d also get a white Alsation called Dave or a Siberian Husky called Fang.

I’d run a monthly book club and perhaps start up a girly magazine/newspaper type thing written by myself and my writer buddies, reporting on all things literary, girly and fun. Pretty vague, I know, but I haven’t thought this one through in detail.

I’d like to be able to compare myself to Carrie Bradshaw although I’d have to tone down the outfits as I fear walking around on four inch heels all the time would prevent me from actually going anywhere. Me and high heels don’t tend to get along, unless I’m sitting down. But I would like to have a massive walk-in wardrobe like hers, so I don’t forget to wear all the shoes and clothes I currently have stuffed in the back of mine, where it’s dark and I can’t reach.

Other things I’d like to do if I had the time and budget include:

Tackle an MA in Online Journalism (even though I don’t have a degree, thank cripes for experience!)
Be a food critic in my spare time
Pay someone to wash my hair for me like they do in the salon – soooo relaxing
Work out with a fitness trainer and have regular massages, manicures and pedicures
Write just for fun – I’d like to do whacky and fun interviews to be published nowhere else other than on my blog, just ‘cos I can

Oh, a girl can dream! What would you do if you weren’t confined by bills and the 9am to 5pm?

Picture by Mrs Logic and taken from Flick