An ex-photographer?

"So, what do you do?"

It's a question I tend to dread, especially when I don't want to get into a long complicated discussion about it. It doesn't seem to matter what answer I give - I work in publishing, I write teaching materials, I write dictionaries, I'm a lexicographer - it inevitably prompts rather predictable misconceptions or questions, which then require proper explanation.

In my continued househunting, it's a question that's cropped up several times from letting agents showing me round flats when I've mentioned that I work from home. The reactions have been varied, but the best so far was from a woman in rather a hurry and not really paying attention who turned to look at me rather puzzled and said "an ex-photographer?!"