teddy bear maker
boarding school dorm mother for 21 fourteen-year-old boys
archivist
box maker
scientific illustrator for Cornell geology department
vintage quilt repairer
worked in the freezer room of an ice cream factory and got to eat the mistakes
tennis coach, lifeguard, swimming instructor, rifle shooting instructor
antiquarian book seller
restoration book binder
newspaper deliverer
washed dishes and sorted recycling at a bagel shop
cashiering at a Mom and Pop store
manager of a feminist bookstore
sold Girl Scout cookies
planned and led children's birthday parties
sold popcorn, candy, ice cream, and drinks in a movie theater
medical social worker
preschool teacher
visiting with nursing home residents as part of a Pet Therapy Program
domestic engineer
potter: threw mugs, bowls, vases, plates, and tiny porcelain dishes
adult fiction and children's book buyer
sheep shearer/herder/feeder/caller
graphic designer and silk screener
photographer
sculptor of cranes, herons, hummingbirds, peacocks, crows, jays, and a flamingo with feathers of petals
cheese, tofu, and yogurt maker
beekeeper's apprentice
taught calves to drink from a pail
drove tractor during haying season
taught 4-H girls how to model clothes and walk a runway
taught square dancing
choir director
mowed lawn for the cat lady across the street
tree trimmer at Summers Christmas Tree Farm
dishwasher, autoclave operator and technician at a fruit fly genetics lab
graduate student at a human genetics lab
post doctoral fellow, statistical genetics lab
rotten apple picker-upper
dictionary reader
babysitter for the child no one else would babysit (he locked his previous babysitter out of the house in the middle of the night)
door opener for cats
manny
lawn boy
house painter
short order fry cook
professional dog walker
librarian
journalist
writer (as well as person who tries to write "writer" without feeling self-conscious about it)
professional worrier
keeper of lost items in places where they cannot be found again
oboe teacher
knitter
door-to-door salt seller
sold clam shell ashtrays with sea creatures I drew on them
sold ox cart rides at fairs
maple syrup producer
snowplow wingman on town crew
sold used horse-drawn farm implements and antique wood-burning cookstoves
ordering, invoicing, and cataloging CDs, music scores and books
taught theatre workshops for children
rehearsing and acting in plays by Shakespeare as well as by modern playwrights
clipped withered flowers from rose bushes
camp counselor for the Fresh Air Fund in Fishkill, NY
waitress at the St. Elmo Hotel at Chautauqua, NY
picked bagworms off the juniper by the front door for 2 cents apiece, but I only made 16 cents before I quit (age 6)
pooper scooper
baby rocker and nursing mother
good wife/bad wife
constant doodler
fossil finder
storyteller
bank teller (always thinking about ways to steal from the bank)
jazz dancer at Washington Monument
personal barber
back-to-the-lander
canner of 75 quarts of yellow squash
library director
playwright
picked strawberries on a neighbor's farm for a nickel a quart and in the fall dug potatoes for a dime a bushel
part time sales clerk Grant's Five and Dime, in the gift wrapping department; the aptitude test indicated that I had "creativity"
telephone receptionist
Campfire Girls leader
elementary school principal
owner and hostess at Lily Hill Bed and Breakfast
volunteer manager at Immaculate Conception food pantry
sold Kirby vacuum cleaners door to door for two weeks
legal secretary
leather crafter
sold my mother’s homemade crescent cookies door-to-door throughout the neighborhood to make Christmas money
sold homemade potholders, painted plaster-of-paris statues, and artificial flowers to the neighbors
worked for one night as a fully dressed waitress at a strip joint
salad flipper at Murphy's in Atlanta
Budweiser Girl at the racetrack
box office manager
college professor
boiling water for safe drinking
melting beeswax to make candles
spinning gold from honeycombs to fill jars
washing feet after a dusty trip to the leprosy clinic
cleaning the floor in the cabin kitchen after the bear's visit
closing eyes and tying the chin after the last breath of a beloved
homemaker
sardine packer
blueberry raker
periwinkle gatherer
passed out cigarette samples on the corner of Broad and Exchange, wearing a styrofoam straw hat and holding a fold-out box tray, like the nightclub hostesses in 1940s movies
cold-calling for our public radio/TV station, asking for donations for the yearly auction
very recently: lunch packer, chauffeur, valet, cheerleader, consultant, fundraiser, expert in the field, bike-riding coach, special detective (finding stuff for everyone else in the house), complaint department, animal control specialist
jewelry engraver
driveway sealer
sheetrock hanger
muralist
public affairs specialist for Planned Parenthood
would-be professional tap dancer
potato peeler, bottle washer, waitress, prep cook, bartender and therapist at my parent's restaurant
creative ideas person
video animator
collaborator
keeper of passwords
one-time pianist
regularly available dance partner
casting director
cultural affairs officer for a consulate
shoe salesperson
youth services library assistant and outreach coordinator
circulation desk student worker in an art library
yurt making intern
bean truck weigher (scales operator)
switchboard operator
off-set printer/operator
antique store clerk
web page designer
architect
hospice volunteer, companion, breakfast cook
waitress at "Big Country Restaurant," wearing overalls and red and white gingham shirt
summer intern: sampling water, soil and vegetation for Kerr-McGee Nuclear Corporation
summer intern for my U. S. Senator in Washington, D.C.
U.S. Peace Corps volunteer
social work intern at a Manhattan psychiatric hospital, where someone had scribbled on the wall "god is an underwire bra"
backup singer
sorority house parent
cared for elderly and ill people in their homes
did field research in South Jersey about runaway slaves in the 1850s who built their own village with the help of Quakers.
cleaned salmon guts in a cannery in Petersburg, Alaska and I never got sick of eating fish almost every day
bussed tables at the tea house on the top of the mountain at Banff Provincial Park, in exchange for dinner
backup projectionist at a drive-in theater that showed films like Busty Cheerleaders
drove a forklift at a plastics factory that specialized in making toilet seats
comic book seller
weed puller and dirt shoveler
floor washer
diaper changer
school psychologist
fracktivist
adjunct dancer in a modern dance company
chicken sexer
park naturalist and wildlife rescue crew member
cable car tour guide at Grouse Mountain
docent and performer at a national science museum, where I worked with one of the first Apples — the 2e
associate director of affirmative action at a university
phytoplankton counter
bus tour guide
high school teacher
aerobics instructor
Goodwill Ambassador at my father's dry cleaning store in the 1960s; when it was very hot I treated customers to milk shakes at the drug store next door
candy striper in the last polio unit in the Jimmy Fund building at Children's Hospital, Boston.
suicide prevention counselor
I have worked hard to keep my temper
taught Israeli folk-dancing at summer camp and at Cornell
milked cows, fed calves, and shoveled manure on a kibbutz in the Jerusalem hills, while practicing unfamiliar Hebrew gutturals
ticket ripper
comforting presence
leader of a poorly-attended Sunday morning garden club, which occasionally became an old newspaper-reading club (membership: 1)
shoe painter
fly poop scrubber
horseback riding instructor at a girls' camp
cooked at a small bistro during the days when quiche was trendy
phone salesperson for what later appeared to be an unscrupulous real estate company
nanny for two small children whose parents ran the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont (yes, that Von Trapp Family)
floral designer
carriage driver and stable attendant
afternoon tea coordinator at a 4-star historic hotel
assistant at the Perkins School for the Blind
intern and sales associate at Scandinavian Design furniture store
database keeper and event planner for the Friends of the Harvard Art Museums
elementary school teacher
creator of beaded bracelets for Erna's Hope, a non-profit organization that offers support to women with ovarian cancer
dental hygienist and school dental hygiene teacher
unpacked tricycles
pulled items for shipping in the L.L. Bean warehouse
picked green beans for $4 a bushel (pickled & sold for $4 a pint)
wrote spells for a Harry Potter party (Accelerati Secreti = speeding without getting caught)
sorted 1040 forms into "short" and "long" piles
hamburger flipper
ballet dancer
poet
bookkeeper
biochemist
editor of a literary journal
corn dog seller at the Maryland State Fair
helped out on my neighbor's egg farm off and on my whole childhood, collecting, washing, sorting, boxing and selling eggs
nude art model
translator for court cases involving immigrants
assistant to a Mexican cheese seller at the farmers' market in Mitla (Oaxaca, Mexico)
sorted exotic bird feathers for a museum in Peru
taught Spanish guitar to a young boy on a farm in the middle of Iowa
manicurist for a 105-year-old woman
rescued abandoned apartments
shopped secretly
ran my fingers through wheat
evangelized about God, frugality, and wandering
money changer at F.W. Woolworth Company
school board member
Girl Scout leader, cookie chairman & community service unit chairman
medical transcriptionist
manual laborer at orange packing plant in Florida
quilter
drove a 10 year old aspiring actor to and from play practice
assisted an Upper East Side M.D. who wore stilettos in the office
coxswain for a crew team
reviewed freshman applications for Ithaca College when they were still on paper
FedEx Express courier, including 20 Christmas Eves in a row
coffee ground saver to start a worm farm in childhood — lots of coffee grounds, no worms
class clown, and I took my job very seriously
checked to be sure men were gone (by 10 p.m.) from the girls' floor of my college dorm
ringing a bell for the Salvation Army
driving little bitty putt-putt tractors and big roaring ones, too
milking cows in many states of the union and many states of mind
throwing junk mail on suburban door mats in San Jose
neatly wrapping Christmas gifts for 50 cents a box
teaching whitewater canoeing to people with psychiatric illnesses
making crepes by the hundreds, piecework: 7 cents a crepe
making shish kabobs by the hundreds, piecework: 11 cents a shish kabob
grant writer
thinker-upper of weekly writing sparks
story lady in school library, London (Edgar Allan Poe was my specialty)
small press publisher
lost student guide
lost pet tracker
feral cat wrangler
key finder
Spanish, French, Spanglish, Chinese, and body gesture translator
pinterest artist
costume assistant for a young Placido Domingo — I had to help him make a quick costume change during Madame Butterfly
price marker in a department store
film developer
long distance mover
singer — (I just joined VOICES community chorus)
picture framer in a small art shop, trimming panes of glass with a very old wall-mounted glass cutter
patrolled the dirt road in front of our house, pulling my tiny wagon and picking up any ugly, dirty junk that might be lying around
rearranging furniture and objects in rooms, finding perfect order and ambience according to my own artsy rules of feng shui
wore knee-high white boots as a go-go dancer in a bar
director of household operations
brainstormer-in-chief at most meetings I attend
art courier — spent time accompanying paintings from one museum to another, riding in 18-wheelers, flying in cargo jets, napping in warehouses, being wined and dined by renowned curators and ignored by lesser assistants
I have read books, studied books, written about the books I read and studied, taught students about books, and I still write about books and study books
5am - 11am shift at Mister Donut
Dominoes pizza delivery person
first female taxicab driver in Ithaca — loved the old ladies, let them sit up front so they could show me family pictures or their latest knitting project
daytime bartender at The Royal Palms — loved the union ironworkers who were building on the Cornell campus
carried 80 pound sacks of soil, and forty pound sacks of seeds, under the ocean of sky in Santa Fe — the start of my day as a sprout farmer
purser on the Shelter Island Ferry.
sprayed brilliant arcs of water over pots of plants as I, the salesperson at the plant store who had only read books on the care and feeding of houseplants, explained to customers which plants could withstand low light
cooked breakfast in an Irish pub in Manhattan; I was a vegan, but sometimes we have to do what we must to survive
cleaned houses for rich people, and one day, my head in the toilet scrubbing at scum, I cried and prayed that I would never have to do this again
hair stylist's assistant three different times so in some ways I've also been a marriage counselor, therapist, and chemical engineer
high school cafeteria worker, paid in food and a Caribbean vacation
educator, cashier, and marine-touch-tank expert at my college’s natural history museum
interpretive ranger (vacation planner, map dispenser, and Encyclopedic Guide to Everything) at Acadia National Park
docent at Ithaca’s two science museums
Loaves and Fishes server, cleaner, and kitchenware-put-away-er
Cornell Lab of Ornithology science writing intern
Geiger counter tester for the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Civil Defense
hot dog chef, producing one of the best chili dogs ever made
floor-sander — nice wide pine planks dating from the early 1800's
dusting the rungs on the dining room furniture because I was closer to the floor
painting campground signs in Mississippi — the other workers all wore striped suits
framing houses, nailing shingles, hanging siding, with lots of other volunteers, all across the U.S.A.
family photographer; I'm rarely in the pictures
worked in the dining hall at Penn State where I met the love of my life
collected old newspapers and sold them to a junkyard for a penny a pound — sometimes I made $2 or $3 which was a lot for me at age seven
caddied at the local golf course
worked at a car wash
coached junior high track, baseball, and basketball
helped build playgrounds in orphanages in China
worked on archeology digs for the National Forest Service
watered my aunt's veggie garden during her vacations, got paid in swiss chard and kale
envelope-stuffer
high school journalist
baby hat crocheter
jewelry maker
homeschool parent
baby sign language teacher
origami box-maker
novel writer
illustrator of dream-images, in black ink
unofficial book reviewer, movie reviewer, food critic, massage therapist, sex therapist
ice cream cake decorator
published cookbook author
laundress
playmate
unofficial book reviewer, movie reviewer, food critic, massage therapist, sex therapist
ice cream cake decorator
published cookbook author
laundress
playmate
Thank you to all these contributors:
Alexandra Larkin
Alexandria Crump
Alexandria Crump
Amy Bartell
Antonia Matthew
Barbara Cartwright
Barbara Force
Barbara Kane Lewis
Barbara West
Blue Waters
Cady Fontana
Carla DeMello
Carol Bossard
Christine Carstensen
Cornelia Rea
Courtney Peterson
Cris Van Hout
Edna Brown
Gary Edward Rith
Gwen Glazer
Jackson Petsche
John Scarlett
Jonathan Plotkin
Judith Andrew
Judy Cogan
Judy Kugelmass
Karen Koyanagi
Kathleen Halton
Kathleen Kramer
Laura LaRosa
Lily Tuskey
Linda Keeler
Linda Pope
Lois Dugo
Lynne Taetzsch
M S Reid
Margo Hittleman
Martha Brewster
Maryam Steele
Mia Boynton
Mieke Ruina
Mihal Ronen
Pamela Babusci
Patrick Robbins
Paula Peters Marra
Peggy Miller
Peggy Stevens
Pilar F.-C. Greenwood
Rebecca Weger
Roger Crump
Roxanne VanWormer
Rus Keeler
Sara Robbins
Sara Robbins
Sasha Paris
Shirley Weeks
Siouxsie Easter
Stacey Murphy
Summer Killian
Susan Lesser
Susan Neuenschwander
Tina Wright
Victoria Armstrong
Zee Zahava
