I keep thinking about how all I want for Christmas is a job. I’m not asking for anything great— just a decent job that will pay the bills, feed me, and help me take care of my aging dog. Actually, that’s all I wanted for my birthday six months ago, too. Fortunately, it seems like the power of my birthday and Christmas combined might just make that job appear. At the very least, my phone has been ringing off the hook with interview requests all day today. Indeed, very odd after nine months of scrimping and begging for the odd job and suffering through what may possibly be the worst (contract) job I will ever have.

But although it seems like this next year may be much better than this last year, it’s too early to tell. I do have about nine months of hell to keep me from getting too excited until that first pay check arrives.

In the meantime, I finally opened a “store” over at etsy.com, and am trying to sell some jewelry I made during my more unhappy moments earlier this year. It will be interesting to see if I actually sell my stuff or not. A lot of people are making a big fuss about how Etsy is the new Ebay— for crafty types, that is. However, I just think it’s pretty cool that someone like myself can sell all of the various stuff they create rather than having it acclimate into a giant pile of uselessness.

But, back to my creations. I’m pretty proud of said jewelry. Most all of it is stuff I think is incredibly awesome and would love to wear. However, I made what I’m selling mostly for cathartic reasons and it’s all just been sitting in a jewelry box since March. Definitely time to clean out my coffers and hope that my creations end up with someone who will wear them. And hey, a little extra money would be nice right now— if not for paying the bills, at least for refueling my craft supplies.

In honor of the upcoming holiday season, here are three drink concoctions from my very own bizarre collection. You most likely will not find these anywhere else. I’m too lazy to check, so think of this as a “Mikania exclusive, most likely”.

Raisin Shot*

1 shot vodka
1 chocolate covered raisin

Drop the raisin in a shot glass and fill the glass with vodka. Drink. The raisin should be the last thing down and serves to cut the sting of the vodka, assuming this is the first drink of the night.

The Turtle Tank

3/4 part citrus vodka
1/4 part lemonade
1 chocolate covered raisin

Prepare and down the drink in the same fashion as the Raisin Shot.

The Mighty Zoltar

vodka
lemonade
1 chocolate covered raisin

Start with 1-2 shots vodka to a highball. Top off with lemonade, stir well, and add the raisin as a “garnish”.

*Credit for the Raisin Shot goes to John, a friend’s awesome roommate who continually inspires me to achieve new drunken heights.

I really like the color blue. Actually, I really like green and purple, and red- then blue, and sometimes orange. But who’s keeping track?

In other news, I just noticed that I got my first comment troll on this website. Yeah! I’m moving up in the world.

1. Your first goal should be to own a sports bar frequented by sweaty, over-weight men there only to jeer at passing college coeds during commercial breaks.
2. Next, ignore your clientele (the sweaty, over-weight men) and turn said bar into a “trendy night club” during the evenings. Don’t forget the colored dancing lights and disco ball.
3. You could always name your bar “The American” and pick a prime location near a liberal university in one of the western-most states.
4. Or, you could play “Hollaback Girl”, that horrendous song from Gewn Stefani’s latest and equally horrendous album. Yes, even remixes played during “night club” hours will chase customers away.
5. If all else fails and you still find yourself with an occasional patron, then hire bouncers that beg on their knees to all passing by to enter your establishment. You get extra bounses- and less customers- by hiring extra-creepy bouncers who promise free drinks to anyone who even remotely resembles a female.

My former boss asked me how I felt today.

How do I feel? I feel like I was really thirsty. So thirsty, that I asked for a glass of water. A woman I didn’t know agreed, and soon returned with a glass of clear liquid that she set down in front of me. Grateful, I thanked her and gulped the liquid down. It was only then that I noticed the liquid smelled and tasted funny. The woman had brought me a glass of poison instead of water. And being so thirsty, I foolishly drank it before realizing.

That’s how I feel. That’s how I feel about working for one day, riding the bus for two hours to get home, only to walk in the door, answer the phone and have my newfound “employer” call to say that she found someone better. Someone who had a science background. Someone who could comprehend the chemical reaction between baking soda and vinegar for a children’s rocket kit more than me. But it’s not about me, it’s because I, the creative writer, don’t know anything about science and they specialize in science kits for young children. I’m a wonderful writer and have amazing design skills, so it really isn’t me. It’s just that it won’t work out even though they originally asked for a creative writer with design skills. It’s because I’m a creative writer that I can’t possibly understand those kits, and therefore can’t possibly write the marketing materials for them.

I told my former boss that I was very bitter.

It’s come to my attention lately that I have become well-known for angry, bitchy rants- at least, well-known in this way to Tyler’s entire family. But honestly, I know how to restrain myself during most confrontations with others. For example, below is what I would love more than anything to say to the people upstairs at this very moment. However, even though all hell has broken loose and they scream at me regularly, every time I knock on their door at three in the morning I continue to plaster a toothy (and hopefully creepy) smile on my face while I politely tell them to keep the noise down because I would really like to be sleeping rather than standing on their porch in my pajamas and slippers as it rains.

I have a hard time writing when I’m depressed. And it looks like I’m going to continue being depressed until I get work. But if I stay depressed, then how am I going to get work? People don’t like hiring depressed employees.

In case you didn’t know, I’m unemployed right now. That means that I have a lot of free time on my hands. I usually spend my days holstered in my apartment reading, making jewelry or watching movies on my iBook. Sometimes I write, take the dog out for walks to the waterfront or get up early in the morning and go to my P-Patch to weed. The weeks since I’ve graduated have blurred into one very long, hellish vacation full of mediocrity.

If I had known that I was going to be unemployed this long— as in “not even able to get hired in retail”— then I would have planned some daring cross-country trip using only $1,000 to survive. I would have written about it on this website and garnered international notoriety and a book contract. Who needs a job when you get a book contract? After all, writers are paid so well.

Because I have two interviews coming up, it’s time for something more positive. I have this incessent paranoia that every time I send people a link to my portoflio page, they somehow find their way here and magically read every negative entry on this blog. And then, because they read all of the negative stuff, they think I’ll be a horrible employee and never contact me for an interview. That, my friends, is why I have only had one interview in three months. An interview for an internship I never applied to. An interview for an internship I was “too qaulified for”. “Too qualified” most likely translating to: “I read your blog and you scare me. I don’t want you to stalk me because of this rejection, so I’ll say something nice about you and tell you to call back in three months when I’m pretty sure some poor fool will have already hired you.”

So, now I’m at the positive part. The only problem is I can’t think of anything overtly positive to write. I’ve put the pressure on myself to write something so positive, it will counteract every negative thought I’ve ever had (including the doubly negative thoughts about all of my neighbors since I’ve been writing this blog) and make the next person who reads this want to hire me instantly.

The only thing I can think to do is to exploit my dog and post a really cute, saccharine picture of her. Maybe I’ll add a caption that reads: “My beautiful master is so awesome, she saved me from her evil father and has suffered a number of horrible living conditions because of me. She also paid for vet bills that cost over $2,000 during one summer while only working part-time, taking classes full-time, and paying double the rent because her roommate/boyfriend skipped town to save money by living at his parents’ house. For the entire summer, her only form of nutrition was pasta and beans and she lost over 20 pounds from malnourishment just so I could to go to the vet a lot and eat really expensive dog food. My master is that great. Don’t you want to hire her right now?”

Like I said, this post is about being positive because of the two job interviews I have. Positive. That’s right, everything you just read or saw is positive.

Bright. Happy. Positive. Smiliey faces everywhere!

I picked up the phone hoping it was Amazon calling to offer me an interview. This is how I respond to all phone calls these days- I pray that it’s someone calling to offer me an interview. Of the countless jobs I’ve applied to, only once have I been offered an interview, and that was for the Apple Retail store, which I was rejected from the morning after my interview because I wasn’t “special enough”.

When this morning’s caller turned out to be my uncle, who asked how I was doing, I immediately started crying. I swear, if I don’t single-handedly kill off my entire family by way of cardiac arrest, then it must be some sort of divine intervention that saved their lives.

Someone, please, for the love of <insert god of choice>, for the continuation of all that is holy and sacred, hire me now!