Thank God I am going to grad school soon and will have something worthwhile to do with my evenings again

Tonight I sat on my couch and tried to teach myself that card trick where you hold them in one hand, bend them, and then shoot them to the other hand. To the shock of only my cats, I am very, very bad at it.

Sometimes I like to think about possible back-up careers in case I flunk out of grad school (slash can't find a job after I get my degree). I think poker dealer in a casino would be fun, and, if nothing else, shiny. It's the only nametag job I can think of that wouldn't make me want to stab my eyes out every day. I'm probably not pretty enough to get hired automatically, so I'd have to get the job based on my witty banter skills and the aforementioned card trick. Note to self: keep practicing. Both.

If that washes out, I've always said (in all seriousness, really) that I'd like to go to beauty school. Lord knows I play enough with my own hair to make this worthwhile. By the way, I had my hair dyed professionally last week. I know! It's sort of maroony now. The guy told me, with a heavy gay lisp wrapped in a Mexican accent, "Honey, I guarantee you it is going to turn out fabulous." I'm not sure if that actually happened, but it'll do until after my brother's wedding in two weeks.

Oh, yeah, anyway. I've had beauty school in the back of my mind since I was about six, I think, and made friends with my mother's stylist's daughter Sarah, who had fantastic curly red hair that I didn't have the sense to covet until much later. I think I'd like to learn how to cut and dye other people's hair, especially if I could become one of those stylists that just does whatever the hell she wants without regard to the client's demands. I am probably intimidating enough to get away with this. Or maybe they teach you that in one of the advanced beauty school classes, who knows. Alternately, I could be one of those stylists that calls all her clients cute little nicknames like "sweetie" and "babydoll." (Like my flaming Mexican stylist, who is, incidentally, bald, and answers the phone with "Hey, bitch.") Also, I would start saying, "Girl, please," a lot more, which I think I'm going to do anyway.

The other alternative profession is massage therapist. I'm not as gung ho about this one, if only because I suspect it's actually a lot of physical work, and [Girl,] please, I think we all know I am not about the strenuous exercise. Still, I adore my massage therapist because she is kooky and free-spirited and knows about weird stuff like how squeezing your earlobes will make a headache feel better (try it) and the synergy of your uterus and your bowels (sorry, guys). Also, she can make football players cry by pressing on their knots, and I am all about learning how to make burly guys cry like tiny babies. Another bonus: she totally charges $60 an hour, which is approximately six times what I make currently. I've been told by a few people that I have good hands (ooh, racy!), so it's definitely an option if this English thing is a bust.

Looking at these alternate professions, I have to say I'm a little surprised by how people-oriented they all are. Clearly my subconscious thinks sitting on the couch and practicing card tricks before an uninterested feline audience is getting just a tad old.