and if you look out of to your left

that's where the old buttfore factory used to be

When the light shines brightest, where do you want to be?

When everyone is looking in one direction together, where are you?

I need to be the one on stage with all of the eyes on me .

When I go to a concert, I’m not in awe of the performers.

I’m jealous that they’re there and everyone isn’t paying attention to me.

Sure, there are times like a Good Blue Rodeo Show or amazing stand up comedy experience when I just bow down to the mastery.

The rest of the time?

I wish it were me.

Therapy was a good gig - an intimate performance culminating with a bit of a surprise somewhere along the way. Sometimes it’s early and savoured - chewn up and regurgitated endlessly. Other times it’s a last minute cliffhanger. But it’s a show.

A show with a shit tonne of paperwork and a shit tonne of responsibility.

It seems every self employed ‘business’ is a shit tonne of paperwork.

I’ve heard of these things called ‘jobs’ where someone pays you and they pay taxes and stuff from your pay each payout so you don’t get hammered by stuff you should have been saving for?

Anyway,

There are these ‘jobs’.

I found one called ‘tour guide’.

My children when seeing people leading tours through Halifax they have both consistently commented: That would be a good job for dad.

I never took them seriously.

Now that I’ve discovered this tour guide job idea?

It’s the best idea ever.

Though I will likely give them credit for knowing me and where they’ve seen me thrive.

Tour guide.

Holy shit. Multiple people paying to watch me and mostly working for tips?

It’s a kind of service orientated, performance where the audience undergoes a transformation through their interaction with novelty.

I get to play with people who are expressing how they encounter a novel place in a familiar way. My job is to keep them smiling.

This is not unlike being a wedding dj.

Except?

Less pressure, no late nights.

This is exciting

You are about to witness or read about a self employed person with a job this summer.

It’ll be like waiting tables without the food or the late nights or the credit card slips.

It’s a show with a daily captive audiences where I’m not responsible for nearly as much as I was a therapist.

It’s a job and they do the paperwork. I don’t send invoices. I don’t save receipts and justify it as ‘part of the business’ when I know it isn’t. I just see money show up on my bank statement in a regular and reliable way.

It seems absurd

And more strange?

It’s seasonal and part time and the pay is pretty good as far as I can imagine and calculate.

(ithinkiminlove)

Stay tuned for more.