mickey z on the "what do you do?" question

When you meet someone for the first time, they often ask: “What do you do?” Being well-trained capitalists, of course we all understand this question to really mean: “What job do you have?” or “How do you make a living?” or “Where do you rent yourself out for 8-10 hours a days in order to pay for all those consumer electronics?”



I once encountered a more palatable version of this scenario when I met an experimental musician who asked me: “What sort of things do you do?” This refreshing variation led me to answer: “Well, one of the things I do is write.” From there, we talked about my books and his music with no mention of whether or not we’ve ever earned a penny from such ventures.