My friend M, after some months of un- and under-employment, got a job yesterday that combines two of his greatest passions and skills. It's not an overwhelmingly well-paid position and it isn't a permanent one either, but someone is going to pay him to ski and take photographs and those are the two things he'd do most all winter no matter what.

After we finished the toasting and got down to the lasanga, I said, somewhat petulantly, that somebody ought to give me the job of my dreams. We're expanding the farming experiment quite substantially next year - we should have a 20-member CSA and a spot at a market or two - and farming is the dream and I'll be doing it. But I'm still going to need a paying job, and I'm going to need one pretty soon 'cause the ones I've got now are ending.

And somebody ought to give me the job of my dreams. Which statement, however, does beg the question: what exactly would the job of my dreams look like?

It's not waitressing, I'll tell you that. I'm a good waitress, and I'm sick of it. I'm sick, in fact, of the low-wage-retail-smile-all-day category all together.

I know this is a crappy time to be picky about getting a job. But it would be really nice to find one that I can stay with and stay happy with. We won't be full-time farmers anytime soon, especially if we buy some land next year, which is what we really, really, really want to do. So I don't want another crappy job that I'm planning to quit as soon as I can.

So the perfect job? It lets me work full-time in the winter and half-time in the summer (or, potentially, pays me enough in the winter to last all year). It pays enough. It lets me work either outside or with my brain or both. Learning things would be good. Not starting really early in the morning would be good. Food and nature and agriculture and animals are good. I like people, provided that I also do other things sometimes.

I loved working in the vet's office - it had the brain-work and the learning and the animals and the sometimes people. Obviously I like farmwork, but generally it fails in the "pays enough" category, and also in the part where I need to work in the winter.

Realistically, I'll probably take the first job I can get that fits "pays enough." But I think it'd be good to at least know what that perfect job looks like, so I'll recognize it if it happens to come along.