Cardiogirl: 19% body fat 100% fun

Sometimes a phrase will stick in my head for no apparent reason. The most recent one floating around is “at least she died doing something she loved.” I suppose if Bob Vila (does anyone remember him?) died in the middle of interviewing Norm about the current old house some might say he died doing what he loved.

So naturally this spawned three thoughts:

1. What would I like to die doing?

2. What would some celebrities like to die doing? (Get your mind out of the gutter.)

3. What would my VIPers like to die doing? Again, no X-rated scenarios.

Me

I like exercising on the elliptical, Converse low tops, cats and chocolate but I don’t want to drop dead at the Y after a sweaty workout. Dying in the midst of eating chocolate sounds messy and I don’t want to die at the cash register buying a new pair of shoes. I will admit, however, I’d be down with petting a cat while suffering a deadly aneurysm.

Them

I’ve heard that Courtney Cox is a real do-it-yourselfer who loves to rehab houses. She might like to kick it while stripping the trim around the window.

Kim Kardashian would probably like to die while filming a reality TV show.

Leann Rimes would probably like to be in the middle of typing 140 characters on Twitter. Naturally she’d be telling the world that she’s not anorexic.

You

Now it’s your turn gingah. Just indulge me and tell me what you love doing. Are you a huge fan of Angry Birds? Do you like attending Civil War re-enactments? What’s your thing?

I should really start a dream journal. My therapist has suggested that, repeatedly, since I spend some serious time analyzing dreams with her.

Oh, how I love analyzing a good dream with someone who’s interested! And before you say she’s just interested because I pay her to be interested — this is different. She really does like digging through dreams.

Either that or she’s one hell of an actress.

Yes, I do realize writing about dreams runs neck and neck with writing memes as the most-hated blog posts ever. But this is my blog and I like my dream life. Well, I like it when it’s not some variation of a stress dream which brings us to last night.

I know
people
hate reading
about dreams just
as much
as they hate
reading meme posts. But
we *are* going there today.

I was back at my parent’s house and any dream that starts out inside their house is definitely the precursor to a stress dream. I was sitting at the dining room table on a phone interview with an Advertising Agency.

The guy on the phone asked me how I would go about starting an ad campaign. Now I’ve worked in marketing and advertising but I was on the creative end. I didn’t work with demographics, focus groups or ROI so that’s why I started to sweat in the dream.

I remember vividly thinking I was pulling buzz words out of my ass when I told him I’d analyze the company’s demographic and then figure out exactly what customers they were going after. I’d provide a storyboard and then test it out on a focus group to get a feel for the results. Then we’d go full force with print, video and billboards.

I guess all those years of watching Darren Stevens and Larry Tate on “Bewitched” finally paid off.

To my surprise, the guy was totally jacked and wanted to hire me. Score! But he wouldn’t talk money. He wanted me to come into the office on Thursday. Yep, he said Thursday and that was two or three days away so I guess it was Monday or Tuesday when I was on that phone interview.

I remember trying to get him to throw out a number first while he was trying to do the same. No one caved and the last thing I remember was him trying to tell me that the drive to Ann Arbor (which is where the fake company was located) would only take me ten minutes so that’s why I needed to come into the office to talk about the offer.

That’s when I realized there was no way I could make it there in ten minutes — I live at least 40 minutes away. And the next thing I remember, I was standing in the aisle at Walgreen’s re-stocking shelves with Pillow Pets.

I guess I didn’t get that job after all.

I’m tired of hearing reporters ask celebrities, “If you couldn’t be an actor/actress what would you do for a living?” Have you ever been asked that question while refilling your coffee cup in the break room? Has it ever come up at a Superbowl party?

No. It hasn’t because no one asks that question in real life.

It’s the premise, I think, that bothers me the most. Like someone is going to show up at your office tomorrow and say, “I’m sorry but you can no longer work in the automobile business. You’re going to have to find a new job and it cannot be related, in any way, to the automtive industry.”

Now for me, the you’re-never-going-to-work-in-this-field-again police would have to get into my dining room to tell me I’m never going to write again. And since I’ve seen enough freaky shows to know better than to let a stranger into my house, they’re going to have to send a letter to share that news.

But let’s go there anyway. A real person’s answer is going to be more interesting than a celebrity’s anyway. So I’m asking y’all right now: what would you do if you couldn’t be a (fill in the blank.)

Because I am extremely nosy I think it would be really fun to transcribe medical files but I’m pretty sure I’d have to get a degree in Medical Transcription before I could get access to those files. And I’m getting pretty lazy as I age so that might not work out.

Hmm. What could I do without having to go to school first?

I don’t like children, I’m not thrilled with the public and I don’t want to have to learn anything before I start work. Maybe I could work in the very back room of the library organizing stuff. I couldn’t re-shelf books, though, because I’d run into the public.

I know! I love creating order from chaos so maybe I could drive that Department of Public Service truck in the Fall that sucks up the leaves from the curb. Or maybe I could be a garbage man. I wouldn’t mind hanging off the back of the garbage truck and then building up my biceps by bags into the back of the truck.

It would probably stink in the summer though. I better go back to the drawing board.

Now it’s your turn — what would you do if you couldn’t be a (whatever you work as today.)