From Playboy to utopia

So, I talked to the head of programming for the Playboy Network today.

No, no, I wasn’t applying for a “job.” It was work-related. But that’s pretty fucking cool. I’ve talked to some swank directors and shit over the years, met some impressive writers, all of that, but the head of programming for Playboy? Ha!

Cross THAT off the list, man.

My company puts me in kinda a PR-type role from time to time, and it’s cool. I dig it. Fact is, I’m charming, witty, and funny as hell. I really ought to use it to my advantage more than I do. I’m not really sure why I don’t go after sales and big business as a career. I know I could really do well.

I said to a friend once, “I want the trappings, but not the trap” of a high-salaried career. I’d be a great rich person. I’ve got style, class, and I’m gracious and generous. I’m an excellent hostess.

If I was rich, I’d have the most bitching parties, and often. Free booze, free grass, live tunes. It’d be killer.

But no, no, much to the loss of everyone, I simply get by. It’s an affront to the fine people in my life that I happen to be relatively impoverished. Even three or four years ago, I’d have great dinner parties all the time. I’d spend a hundred bucks and do it up right (always BYOB, though).

Now? “Hey, wanna come over for a burger?” Yep. Livin’ large, man.

So, I could be a corporate whore. I could be so frickin’ in the black right now. Man. After all, I can sell anyone on anything. People just don’t say no to me. Hell, I had this woman come in a toy store I once worked in, and she was spending $7 on a wooden train whistle. Twenty minutes of conversation later, she was walking out with $1900 worth of toys to be shipped by freighter to her preschool in Korea.

I once sold $2200 worth of everyday books to one man. Sales? A walk in the park.

I don’t mind selling when it’s not a pressure thing, but I’d hate to have my soul in my pocket when I went to work everyday. I’d hate my job to be all about the bottom line. And I hate the duplicitous world of big business.

A perfect life, for me, would probably living in a little seaside town, writing at my leisure, doing photography, and probably something involving a little boat where I take tourists around the coastline a little. I’d love that. Or owning a literary coffee shop. Stained old books on shelves, worn plank flooring, muted earth tones on the walls.

Yep, that’d be all it’d take. I’d still want to be close to the city, just not in it. Not anymore.

Countdown’s on. By 40, says I. And you? What's down the road for you?