America Feels The Heat

It seems to have finally hit America that our old comfortable life by the cabbana is not particularly going to cut it in this new world that is starting to feel a little like the world our Grandparents love to discuss after a greasy Thanksgiving dinner. Talk of paring down our purchasing habits is spreading across the airwaves like wild California fires. Some people have even gotten rid of their house boys.

If it takes a depression to get our asses moving then I'm happy we're headed towards this tough financial period as a nation. Personally I have already gone through my own personal depression and as I try to figure out how to deal with my credit card debt it is clear that we are far from out of the woods.

So. What to do? I'll start by saying that I do not cut coupons. Coupons, in case I didn't mention them on my extensive list of anxieties, make me anxious. I have coupon phobia. I hate them. It's why I didn't last for more than one shift at Safeway. I'm not kidding.

The first three customers came up clutching fistfuls of coupons for different products, or the same products bearing different bar codes which are only good with the matching coupon, and there were coupons that added value to other coupons but only if the weight of the product is the 11oz version, and then there were the coupons that canceled out some (but not all) of the competitor's deals, but some of those are only valid if you buy on Tuesdays and bring your dead mother with you for proof of age.

When the following two customers came up clutching their own enormous handfuls of coupons I was already planning my resignation. My palpitations were very bad that day. I believe that coupons kill people slowly over the years of paper cuts and a thick lust for saving 28 cents at a time. I think coupons are addictive like gambling. What I think is: if you want to give me a deal, just give me a god damn deal. I'm not your monkey.

So no coupons.

I have been reading a lot of great ideas on other people's blogs and it has got me thinking that one way to approach saving money is by making a grocery list, including the monthly household purchases you make, and look at it hard. Look at it like you're a serious Russian Author. (Yes, I mean: with a bottle of Vodka by your side. It's the only way.) I'm sure that if you need help picturing this I can do an informative self portrait by Sunday illustrating my point with my newly whacked out eyebrows.*

The next thing to do is figure out what you can start making yourself for cheaper. Here are a number of common grocery list items that can be made for cheaper than you can usually buy them:

toothpaste
shampoo
lip balm
toilet paper
menstrual pads
air freshener
sponges
Clorox wipes
ricotta
canned beans
herbs

Those are just some examples. Now find out if you can make any of these things on your own to help the environment and or your budget. I cheated, I only put down things that I know can be produced at home for cheaper. I know you're thinking "Impossible!" C'mon. Play. Imagine.

Toothpaste: using baking soda and salt is how people were caring for their teeth long before Crest and its ilk came along. Personally, I love the toothpaste I use (Tom's Of Maine which is now Tom's of Crest). I loathe the sensation of baking soda in my mouth. However. My toothpaste costs me between $3.98 a tube and $4.98 a tube. Which lasts roughly two weeks with two of us using the same kind. Baking soda is sold bulk at my cheap store for 5o cents a pound. A POUND. A pound of baking soda could clean a whole hell of a lot of teeth. So I have been trying to brave up to make the change.

Shampoo: baking soda made into a paste. You can read about it here. Baking soda bulk is really cheap (see above) and apparently it performs a whole lot of great household tasks. Plus it's nontoxic which you can't actually say of most shampoos. Even the ones that claim to be natural.

Lip balm: You can buy a bar of bees wax, get some sweet almond oil, and make a hell of a lot more lip balm than you can buy for the same price. At some point I'll be organized enough to cost it all out officially for you. Because you have to make so much at once generally, this is a great project to do with friends and split the cost. Or, make a bunch and store them in a very cool dry place and they will keep for a long time.

Toilet Paper: Don't use any. Yep. Don't use any at all. Instead make yourself cloth wipes. I know that people (like me) generally can't grasp this concept all at once. It requires some serious thought. I have two good friends who do not use toilet paper any more and only have it in their homes as a kindness to less advanced guests like myself. I have to say that if I can get my whole household in better order so that I feel some sense of calm I might be able to do this. Read all about how it's done here. Maybe it seems wild but it's not. How long have we all been using toilet paper? Not that long actually.

Menstrual pads: Another item that can be made from cloth. Wash them. Use them again. I may not be ready for cloth wipes but I am ready for cloth pads. Every month I buy some and it isn't exactly the cost that bothers me but the waste. Although, why not save the $4.00 every month? I have been meaning to do this for a while and what keeps getting in my way is the general chaos of my sewing room and house. This is one I plan to tackle before my next cycle.

Air Freshener: Dudes...it's called OPEN THE WINDOWS. Even if you live in a frigid region you should open your windows for brief periods of time to let in fresh air. It is what we need most of all to keep a house fresh. But if you insist on using a spritzer- make it out of water and essential oils. Shake it up and spray. Don't use that creepy bottled crap because a) it smells super creepy and b) the ingredients are going to contribute to your death.

Sponges: This is a weakness of mine. I love sponges. I am very particular about them too. I love the Scotch brand yellow ones with the scrubbie on the back. But this is still a cost. And I don't use them until they are black with grime. The obvious answer is to use dish clothes. They last longer, can be washed in the washer, and you can make them yourself. I'm not ready for this but I could eliminate it from my shopping list and I will... as soon as I get over my fixation.

Clorox wipes: These are evil incarnate. Yes, I have lambasted them. They are squares of synthetic material soaked in toxic chemicals. Don't wipe your house or children with them. Unless you wish to do them damage. You don't need wipes. Clean dish clothes are just as good for wiping down surfaces and children. Or plain wash cloths. Just stop buying these. Waste of money.

Ricotta: I no longer buy it. For a 15 oz container of it I have to pay at least $4.00. But I can buy good quality local milk for $2.69. It takes little effort or time to make ricotta. And when I make it myself it tastes better.

Canned beans: Buy bulk dried beans. They are easy to fix. Busy? Find a crock pot at the thrift store and put your beans in there while you're at work (on low, with lots of water) and when you get home they'll be ready for you to use. A can of beans generally costs at least 50 cents (usually more for me). You can buy beans bulk for the same price per pound and get four times the amount of beans for the price. Without using a single coupon.

Herbs: I do buy spices when I need them but I rarely buy herbs anymore. I grow them. And then I dry them. It costs me about $2.69 for each thyme plant and I usually grow four or five of them and use it fresh when I need it and dry the rest twice a year. The plants generally last a few years in my climate. I also grow rosemary, sage, tarragon, oregano, and marjoram.

There is so much we can do ourselves. I'm getting inspired by all the gloom out there to make change and I really hope it makes everyone else stop and think too. It isn't about "doing without" so much as it's about taking better care of ourselves for less money. Most of the solutions to spending less are also solutions to wasting and polluting less. What would life without luxuries be? I agree. But what meaning is there to luxury if we have it all the time?

I'm not proposing to make my life more difficult or unfun, the truth is, doing these things for ourselves and making these kinds of changes are mostly fun. Some of you won't believe me unless you try it for yourself. Obviously I'm going to write here about things I try. It's what I do. And if I try something and it's a disaster, I promise not to sugar coat it for you. The magazine (Roost) will also have lots of great information in it on making some of the things I've mentioned here because I have several amazing contributors.

Let's all reinvent ourselves as amazing capable tough people able to get through rough times with a sense of humor and with our teeth still in our mouths.

Well, it's time to get in my jammies and watch some CSI.







*I get my hair cut and my brows waxed about four times a year and I have been meticulously letting my eyebrows get wider because a few years ago they were waxed to thin by a pencil-brow whore. My trauma was severe. I do not look nice with thin brows. I only like them to be cleaned up so they are less HAIRY. Well, today they have been made super thin and it is humiliating to think that people will think I think my brows look great. Ironically, I generally get a crappy haircut and today my haircut was pretty good.

Food Nourishes Our Bodies, Money Nourishes Nothing

My friend Laurie brought me another bag of grapes and so after a wonderful day of dealing with all the accumulated detritus of a life come undone with stress and a lot of working away from my home, I cleaned the grapes and began de-stemming them to make more raisins. Plucking grapes off of their stems, especially when there are lots of little ones, takes time and care if you are trying not to wreck them with careless haste. I got to hearing people's thoughts whirling in my head "Is all that work really worth a pint of raisins that you can buy for a couple of dollars?" and "When I think about what money I could be making in the time it takes to make those raisins it just isn't economically worth doing."

There are only so many hours in the day. What do we spend those hours doing? Running around in cars hustling children from one activity to the next, working for someone else for dollars in the bank, scrambling to do all the things we're "supposed" to do like go to the movies, take vacations to Disneyland, and sit on school boards to prove we're good parents.

But what if we're looking at everything backwards through the lens?

I started thinking about how hard people worked during the Great Depression* and how people were working crap jobs for pennies just to barely survive. They may have worked 16 hour days to keep their family from drowning but a lot of them still had to make a lot of the things they needed for themselves. In fact, they worked all those hours and still baked their own bread, they canned food, they grew gardens. Why? Because there was no Walmart to offer them insanely cheap alternatives.

The real cost of things.

When people say they can buy something for less than they can make it, do they even understand the true cost of what they're buying? Do they take into account the quality? Do they calculate the human cost involved? If you're not making something yourself, someone else is making it for you. If it's cheap to buy, it was cheaper to make. Someone, a person not unlike yourself, was paid to do the work so you wouldn't have to. But for you to get it so cheap, that person is not making much money on the factory line where practically your whole life has been assembled.

That's a cost. Human sweat. The quality issue is a serious one. If you buy something really cheap, it was made cheaply and will not last long. The sooner things break down the faster the landfills are filled up and the faster the earth is covered in human detritus. Wasted money and time. That's what the landfills are.

I once bought a pair of pants at K-mart because we were on a budget and K-mart had some super cheap clothes. I wore that pair of pants ONCE before they ripped in such a way that I couldn't fix them. One day. So what did those pants truly cost me and everyone? They ended up on a landfill. I've made lots of my own clothes before and when I do I choose good quality fabrics, I use a short stitch (better quality) and I make them to last. I have rarely had to get rid of anything I've made for myself. In fact, if I ever lose my fat I will be able to wear them all again because I still have them. They were not only worth making, I made something worth keeping.

Of course not all of us were born with equal abilities. Not all of us will be able to become skilled at sewing, or canning, or woodworking. But all of us are capable of learning some of those things. Of practicing the art of doing for ourselves. We shouldn't be looking at these life skills through a money filter. Money is just a stand in for the things we can't do for ourselves. Originally money was how many chickens we had, how much produce came from our garden, and what skills we had that could be used to trade for other people's skills.

Bartering is ancient currency.

I used to have a knee-jerk reaction against the concept of bartering. It reminded me of a Hippie-style simplistic vision of utopia. I don't believe in utopias any more than I believe in panaceas. People who suggest that a world where there was no money and we all bartered for our needs sound just like evangelists talking about heaven where no one needs to eat. Once I got past my knee jerk reaction I felt anxiety at the concept of negotiating trades with people because I have a lot of weird phobias and irrational anxieties about dealing with people. Bartering seems like such a nebulous concept, one steeped in the possibility of tangles and snares. How can you be sure it's fair? How can you know what some thing's worth?

But I've changed my view on it. Oddly enough it is largely through blogging and being here in my small town where there are quite a few like minded people that I have come to realize that bartering is no more complicated than trading goods for dollars. I've come to regard trading skills and homemade goods as more honorable than buying. And more pleasant. How do I keep from getting fraught with anxiety? I realized a while ago that it isn't about fixed worth in the same way that money is about fixed worth. It's about need. Need is so much easier to sort out.

I need some wine barrels. My friend, who gets them for free from the winery he's working at likes my home canned goods and he and his wife value them and we make a trade. It isn't really about the worth of the barrels versus the worth of the canned goods. That would be looking through the money filter. It was need versus desire. Bartering is also often a matter of need versus need.

I have often heard people say that they can't make something themselves for cheaper than it costs them to buy it. But I think they're looking at it backwards. I think they should be asking themselves if it's worth all the hours they spend away from home to buy everything instead of making things for themselves? If they didn't have to buy so much they wouldn't have to work so much.

If you made all your own clothes you most certainly would have to spend more than you would if you were buying them from Walmart, but if you let me teach you to sew, or another friend, you can make a better quality item that will be useful for years. And when it's done, you can make a patchwork quilt out of it because you will have chosen natural fabrics. Think of all the hours of working for money you could save yourself by not having to buy clothes so often.

Needs Versus Desires

Then there's the semantics of the issue that drives me nuts. Choice and Need are two words that get abused all the time. When people say they have no choice but to have two cars they are generally not being honest. Maybe in a case where one of the cars is a truck that is necessary for work, there is a need. But most families in the Untied States have at least two cars. I know lots of them that have more. I hear them say "We need all the cars because of the kids." Each kid as they grow seems to think that life requires a car of their own. We choose where we live. We choose the activities we follow. We choose how far we live from our friends. We make all the choices that lead to our needs.

I would like people to stop saying they have "no choice". We all have choice. We can decide not to keep up with the Joneses. Maybe if we're so concerned about keeping up with the Joneses we should move to where the Joneses don't care what we do. Maybe your kids don't need two or three extracurricular activities. Maybe you don't need to chair any school or work functions.

We all make choices that lead to the lives we're living. A lot of the things we say we "need" we don't really need, we just want. It is easier to convince ourselves to work harder, earn more money, even when we're bone tired already, if we believe that what we want is really what we need.

I look to myself in this. I have thought about selling my Scooter because if I really examine it, I know that I don't "need" it. I love it, I enjoy it, and I use it. We have one car. One scooter. Many bicycles. I don't need my scooter, but I have it. For the time being I have decided to keep it because we don't use our car very much each week. Philip rides his bike to work. We use the car to run errands and to visit friends. We only have to fill up the car with gas once every couple of weeks now. We used to fill it up every week. We've made our life more local on purpose. Yes, there's a price. Local jobs don't pay well. It's been a struggle. But we're happier.**

I know that I could run a lot more errands on my bicycle than I do. If I didn't have my scooter I would still be able to go grocery shopping on my bicycle.

So I don't need my scooter. I'm trying for honesty in myself just as I'm asking everyone else to be honest. You can still make your choices, and maybe one of your choices is to have two cars. But recognize that it's a choice, and a desire, not a need.


In spite of being tired at 5pm, de-stemming grapes doesn't feel like work, it feels like meditation.







*So great it gets capitalized like God and Jesus.

**Well, we're happier now that I have a job that is going to make a huge difference, but it's local too since I work from home!! We really are happiest not commuting to jobs fifty miles from home which is what Philip used to do for seven years.

Beware The Impostor!

(plus thoughts about the cold months ahead)

When you come to my house the first thing you will be greeted by is my ghetto gate behind which my ferocious dog will be frantically trying to draw attention to you. We like to make guests feel welcome around here. The next thing you will notice is me standing on the porch looking smashing in my favorite chicken-

But wait!!! That isn't me! It's an impostor! BBQ Sue is a master at disguises. She stands around all day imitating me. How can you tell the difference between Sue and me?

• Sue has no ass. I have the equivalent of two.

• Unlike me Sue is not spazzy, she never waves her arms around wildly.

• Clothes hang sadly off of her skeletal frame. My clothes don't even fit over my thighs anymore.
  

• Sue was too chicken to get her nose pierced.

• Sue makes teenage boys hot*. As a woman raising a son who will one day be a teenager I am pleased that I do not share this problem.

• Sue cannot cook.

In spite of the funky weather we've had this year and the fact that I lamely planted tomatoes very very late in the season, I am getting some ripening in my yard. What to do with them all? I love it when people say they have so many tomatoes they don't know what to do with them. I always want to say "Are you retarded?! Give them to me you idiot!" Ha. No, I'm not so mean. But I can think of so many things to do with tomatoes. I can eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Today I'm using the tomato sauce I made this week to make a white bean and spinach sauce for pasta to which I'm thinking of adding some broiled or baked eggplant. I am also making a ricotta tomato gratin using all cherry tomatoes. I am thinking of putting the recipe for it up here. I made the ricotta yesterday. I am thinking of doing a tutorial for that as well.

My plan for the twenty pounds of romas my mom and I picked from my community garden row is to slow roast them and then freeze them. Wonderful to add to pasta in the middle of winter.

My dreams have been crazy vivid lately. I sometimes remember them as though they really happened and then have to flag them in my brain as dream snippets so I don't get continually fooled by them. The toy store has figured strongly in them.

I would very much like to know what this whole bank crisis is going to do to mortgage interest rates. Will they skyrocket? We were thinking of refinancing our home since there is supposedly nothing but worse economic times ahead. I am starting to hear the "D" word being tossed around. This is funny since our country has only recently acknowledged that we might actually be experiencing a recession. Some people like to think we'll never experience a depression like "The Great Depression" again. Why? Why not? It's the same as how so many people think we could never have another Holocaust, or Viet Nam (which we're currently in the middle of), or another civil war. Dudes, there are lots of people in the US who are still ardently waving their confederate flags.

Things will never be exactly the same. Certain details will change. But history repeats itself all the time with similar plagues, wars, and famines. The main thing we remember about the Viet Nam war was that half the country didn't think we should join that war, we spent years trying to win the war and couldn't, and finally brought the troops home battered-damaged-and not beloved by their people. The similarities are very clear. I know lots of people will say: "but it's totally different because that war was fought in Viet Nam not the middle east..." details. The political implications for our people here at home are very similar.

Anyway. Didn't mean to veer off there. It's just that I don't know exactly what our current crisis will mean for mortgages and not knowing makes it difficult to prepare for hunkering down. Will interest rates skyrocket? With the government not willing to acknowledge the truth of any current situation, it makes planning very difficult. What will credit card companies do in response? Will they crack down on card members? Will their rates be more or less competitive?

If we have another great depression, will me and my family be able to survive it? And where will the equivalent of "the dust bowl" be this time? If a depression comes, what kind of leader will be best equipped to steer us through it with the least amount of starvation and job loss? Now that I have a house I love, will I lose everything again?

What are the most depression proof jobs? That is something we should all really examine, isn't it? What can we do to protect ourselves?

I am already thinking about the cold winter months coming. Heating this house didn't seem exorbitantly expensive last early spring, but electricity prices have gone up.

I am working hard on reducing my water usage. I don't think we waste a whole lot of water except when I'm doing dishes. I use my dishwasher for most things yet because I cook a lot there are always a lot of things that don't do as well in the dishwasher that I must wash by hand. I am training myself to turn the water off while scrubbing. I like having a stream of warm water running over the dishes I'm washing because I can see what's left more easily and it's soothing. It wastes a lot of water though. So now I'm scrubbing heaps with just the soapy sponge and then rinsing all at once, if I miss something I can scrub again. I am also saving the water I use to rinse vegetables to throw on the garden.

It takes time to change old habits. But it's good to do it. I think we'll install a laundry line along the length of our covered porch too for drying some loads on a line even in winter. It's just about too late for installing a laundry line outdoors. We could do one in the basement too, though the ceiling is very low. I think I might do it anyway. This could really cut down on our energy bills this winter. Clothes take a lot longer to dry in damp weather, but who cares?

Time to make some extra blankets too. I think all of us here at the farmhouse should have snug robes to wear around the house and blankets to wrap up in. I don't have to buy any fabric for that either since I already have tons.

Lots to think about. Curtains to make too. I clearly have my head stuck in nest and hunker mode. How about all of you out there? Any thoughts to share? Preparations for the winter? Preparations for a continually sinking economy? Anyone out there found themselves accidentally addressing BBQ Sue instead of me? Anyone out there have too many tomatoes? Talk to me on this quiet Sunday.

*Philip overheard two teen boys gawking at Sue when she was outside our store. One of them said to the other "She's making me hot."

Hire me

(I'm the one you want by your side for the Apocalypse)

The best way to find out if your local economy is strong or weak is to try to get a good job in it. A job that will cover all your bills and leave you with a little extra for emergencies like shoes for junior and underwear that you wouldn't be embarrassed to be caught dead in, which is the kind of predicament I just might end up in if I don't get work soon.

The jig is up. I have done everything I have the energy to do, am capable of doing, and know how to do to not have to get a job in the outside world. I had a great five years of staying home, first as a housewife with no baby (total heaven!), then as a mom (also pretty great...though I can't say it wasn't really hard work), and then the last four years running a part time business which morphed into a full time business with the one theme running through the whole endeavor: I consistently made no money.

It's time to take stock because I have got to convince someone out there to pay me enough money so as not to lose my house, my dignity, or my happiness...or at least my house, now that I'm finally in one I completely love.

Let's take a look first at the job experiences from which I may draw in order to find a new job:

Babysitting- I was really good at it since I never did drugs or had boyfriends.

Underage nail salon slave- in exchange for gross manicures. Not my best job.

Salesperson- New York Fabrics. My first legal job.

Cashier- at Wendy's. What can I say? I was doing my laundry with bar soap in the sink, eating my room mate's government cheese, and no one in the fashion industry would hire me.

Salesperson- Radio Shack. It was next door to Wendy's on Market Street in San Francisco. It paid about ten cents more per hour and I didn't have to smell like thick meat grease.

Shipping Manager- Weston Wear. I loved it. One of my favorite jobs ever. It was very industrial, I had to wear boots and lift 50 lb boxes and I got to fill out UPS papers and feel very important. This was my big break in fashion design.

Costume Designer- self employed. I fancied myself in business but really I turned out to just be a contract worker for my good friend. Two years of barely making rent while sewing couture quality historical garments made anything else sound like better work.

Barista- we didn't call it that when I had the job. I was either a "coffee jerk" or just a jerk. I loved this work too. Very freeing to just make coffee for a lot of idiots and feel very smart and undiscovered behind the scenes. Hard work. Early burn out.

Stockroom Person- Loved this job. Again, had to wear boots and got to smash boxes and be generally a great ass kicker. I got to interact with the UPS guys and be the first to unpack merchandise, steam clothes, organize the chaos, and generally avoid customers except when doing them the fun service of beautifully wrapping gifts for them.

Design Assistant- Mulberry Neckwear. I loved this job too. Seriously loved it. I found I didn't want to be one of the designers because they weren't my kind of people except for a couple of them who became good friends of mine. I liked being in the thick of the action, doing the nitty gritty. Keeping all the designers organized, cleaning up their messes, and being necessary to the rest of the department. Production art is really satisfying.

Swatcher- Mulberry Neckwear. Aside from staying home to be a housewife and a mom this was my all time favorite job. I was the liaison between the pattern designers and the printers in Korea who had to print the colors the designers generated. I sat at brightly lit tables of color swatches matching them to computer print outs. I was speaking in color which was exciting. Everything is essentially language. I was very good at this job. I really had to speak up for myself to get it. The only reason I left was to go to community college. They wouldn't let me reduce my hours, so I left to learn math and French.

Barista- Copperfield's. Again?! Why did I come back to this? Good God, I still wasn't done being burnt out working in a coffee house. Why are people so rude to the underpaid people serving them snacks and caffeinated beverages?

Salesperson- Copperfield's books. I did really enjoy this job. I love putting books away and finding books for people. I was very good at it and it was obviously gratifying being completely surrounded by books, talking books, recommending them, ordering them, and breathing them.

Housewife- I have to be honest here and say that this was the single best job I've ever had in my entire life. I loved it. I blossomed and grew and came alive in ways I never expected and I found the heart of my self through finding joy in keeping my home. No one is ever supposed to say this but it was better than being a housewife with a kid. I got a lot more sleep and my house was actually kind of clean for the first time in my life.

Stay At Home Mom- Being a mom is pretty wonderful but it is way more work than being a housewife without a child. You are still expected to keep house, but you are now living with a little human whose entire purpose in life is to destroy order and keep you from sleep. Being a stay at home mom is harder work than any other job a person can have. Stock market? Oh give me break- that's total cake in comparison.

Business owner- Dustpan Alley. Started with handmade cards. Part time gig. Fun. But I can never just go a little distance. This became the obvious full time effort when we lost everything and moved to Oregon.

Store owner- Dustpan Alley. Seemed I had to do it. Spent all our money trying. Oh crap. Still kind of smarts. If you want to get to know a new town, opening a store in it is the fastest way to meet all of the movers, shakers, and the blood suckers in the shortest time possible. Closing your store down is the fastest way to find out what real friends you've made.

Blog Writer- the pay has been close to nil until I count all the friendships I've made and the very loyal same group of readers I've had for the two years I've been writing, not to mention that the discipline it has taken to write a post nearly every day that is good enough to be read by others has honed my writing skills.

Technical Writer- for Studio Mongo. Excellent job. I got a chance to sharpen my writing wits to the specifications of others, which meant not using swear words or making fun of Paris Hilton for a change. Technical writing is not quite as lively as blog writing, yet it is so necessary there is a thrill in writing something so functional. I found myself getting into it and my boss said I was very good at it.

Total Waster. This is what purgatory would feel like if I believed purgatory was a real place. Wanting one thing, knowing that I can't have it, dragging my feet towards a future I don't want, a life I didn't expect, a path I have no desire for. I got a taste of what the ideal life for me is long enough to want it with every cell in my body but it is now like a treasure set adrift in a rough sea.

At some point you've just got to get on with it and make the best of life as it presents itself that you can. Maybe you can't make a silk purse out of sow's ears but you might be able to make some super funky moccasins and convince a bunch of really foolish rich people that they're really stylish, if this wasn't true then there is no explanation for Ugg boots. So I'm moving on to the part where I stop whining and grow a pair of balls. Because that's what you need to look for work these days.

Here's what's generally on offer here in my little corner of the world:

Cashiers
Baristas
Line cooks
Office Clerks
Salespeople
Seasonal fruit workers
Waiters
Medical workers

This wouldn't be such a bad line up really, except that you must read the fine print and find out how qualified employers expect you to be:

Cashier: full time hours for bright, honest, non-junkie. Pays minimum wage. Must have 10 years experience working on our own register system, have a bachelor's degree in anything, and must submit a vial of pee to screen for excessive vitamin B12 shots.

Administrative Assistant: Full time hours. Pay starts at $8.00 p/h. Responsibilities include: data entry, bills processing, ordering supplies, making spreadsheets, pretending not to be a smart-ass. Qualifications: must have bachelor's degree in office sciences, be proficient in Excel, InDesign (in case we want to exploit any latent design talents), two years experience with Microsoft Word (2008 edition), and be not only punctual and subservient, but must also have not smoked tobacco in five years.

Gas Station Attendant: will train. Minimum wage. Bring good attitude. Must have bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts. Must not have been in prison for at least two years. No need to pass drug test.

Every employer has an impossible laundry list of requirements for their prospective employees and the only way anyone could possibly meet them all is if they've already been working for that employer their whole adult life. Since when are so few people willing to train anyone for good work? Since when must we all come pre-equipped with qualifications we would have had to be fortune tellers to have had the foresight to acquire?

Since we became a depressed economy with a whole lot more people in need of work than there are jobs, that's when.

I don't even have a bachelor's degree. You'd think I'd be pretty far buried under the trash heap of educational regrets about now. What is keeping me from regretting having followed my singular path and not getting the traditional degree is that it really doesn't matter what degree a person has these days, it won't be the right one. It will cost you every penny you can beg, borrow, or steal, and in the end your dream job will turn up on a job list and they will want you to have the degree you didn't get.

Why You Want Me For The Job:

I am unbelievably loyal to good employers, I am honest (I don't steal time or money), I thrive on challenges, I am publicly easy to get along with and tolerant of nearly all human foibles (such as religion and dim wits), I have enough optimism to face down the Grim Reaper, I learn quickly, I am the ultimate Girl-Friday, I am fantastic in a crisis, I am level headed, smart, properly afraid of breaking the law (but not enough to be annoying to anyone besides my family).

Qualifications: Worked my ass off since I was a preteen for other people with the highest degree of dedication and have maintained a spotless work ethic, have an associates degree in fashion design which is useless to you but shows that I got exactly the education I needed in order to do what I set out to do when I was seventeen (over twenty years ago now), have owned my own business, I have been trusted with fabric archives to organize, children to care for, I am diplomatic in spite of my acerbic wit, I want to thrive and I want others to thrive as well, I will get the god-damned job done!

Bottom Line: I'm the one you want by your side when the Apocalypse comes.

Hire me!