My Career is a Handicraft

“It feels like my whole career is just this patchwork quilt of different jobs.” — Rachel Bailey, 26, to Marketplace Money

My career is a collage made of torn up pieces of construction paper and paste.

My career is a pointillist painting where up close it’s just some dots and then you move further back and it’s still dots, but smaller.

My career is one of the those fake stained glass kits that looks like it’s really easy and fun but your hand isn’t that steady and the nozzle is too big and you end up with blobs of toxic goo congealed on a plastic disk and it only sort of looks like a butterfly, if you squint, but your mom keeps it in her bedroom window anyway and says she likes it but you know she’s disappointed and frankly so are you.

My career is a lopsided bowl you made in a pottery class at the community center because you thought it’d be a sexy hobby to try out like in the movies and it was kind of fun but no one caressed your neck and also now you have this ugly bowl and clay stains on your favorite shoes.

My career is a rock tumbler that looked so cool on the shelf at Michael’s and was so colorful and exciting looking and expensive and you begged for it and then you got it and it was just a vibrating bowl and some rocks, basically, what is the craft of this, why did you think this would be cool, also it’s so loud that you can only do it in the basement which is scary and horrible but you have to pretend you love it anyway because it was so expensive and also what are you supposed to do with these rocks now.

My career is a friendship bracelet that you give up on braiding halfway through and are just like, it’s a bookmark with fringe, I meant for it to be like that the whole time.

My career is a birthday card you draw when you’re already late for the party and you make the birthday girl’s name in bubble letters and draw stick figures of the two of you and a cupcake and it’d be very cute if you were 7 but you are not 7 and neither is your friend.

My career is a mobile made of found nature things, like little sticks and some flower buds stolen from the neighbors’ yard and some pretty leaves and you tried to use vines to hold it together but that didn’t really work that well so you just used floss and tape and now you have this only kind of wonky half organic nature mobile, beautiful.

My career is exquisite corpse drawing that you do with yourself when you’re lonely and even though it’s totally in your power to make a really beautiful ballerina werewolf tadpole beauty queen, you don’t, because what’s the point, there isn’t one.

My career is a blank canvas that you hang over your bed because you read in a magazine that it’s like, modern art, but actually it’s just a blank canvas and you know it and look at it everyday and think, I’m a farce.

My career is a crayon rubbing with a leaf except the leaf isn’t really veiny enough and also you’re not pressing down hard enough on the crayon and maybe the paper is too thick and brown was the only crayon left in the box.

My career is a turkey you make by tracing your hand and drawing eyes and the gobble thing and wow this is stupidest craft ever what is the point of this why has this gone down in history as a great craft and also it’s not even Thanksgiving, not even close.

My career is a magic eye that never actually comes into focus.

My career is a magic eye that turns out to be something really stupid, like a rhombus, that’s it, you crossed your eyes and concentrated really hard for that.

My career is a mosaic of shattered tea saucers and dreams.

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