This year, I've been living with doctors. I've also lived with a lawyer and an engineer. Now I'm living with another lawyer and someone who works in HR.

Normal people. People whose jobs have structure and purpose.

And they're not boring, either. They're interesting. They build (literally) bridges. Not in a "build a bridge and get over it" kind of a way, or a "bridges to a network of artistic communities" kind of a way - they literally build bridges. Well, the engineer does. The other ones do things like, you know, deliver babies. Bring people into the world. That kind of stuff. The others appear in court. One of them employs people.

I don't even employ myself. I'm what's called freelance.

Wikipedia defines a freelancer as "a self-employed person working in a profession or trade in which full-time employment is also common. The word's etymology derives from the medieval term for a mercenary, a "free lance," which literally described a knight who was not attached to any particular lord, and could be hired for a given task".

Well, it's true in a way. I'm not attached to any particular lord. Not in my professional life. In that sense, I guess I'm kind of my own lord, which is nice.

It's the "working in a profession or trade at any given task" aspect that makes freelance sound rather like work-whoring. Sometimes, when I go home to find doctors who've saved lives and engineers who've constructed bridges, it does make me wonder what the hell I'm doing with my time. The other day, I was negotiating orange juice prices (no, really) at one of my paid jobs, when Rita called asking did I know the German translation of "I Could Be Anybody". Not exactly your average day in the office.

I suppose it could be described as "mercenary" though.

I'm thinking of writing "mercenary" as my profession on my tax forms. Or at the very least on my passport. Although the other option is, I could just write, "own lord". I'd be in some good company there.