Top five reasons I haven’t found a job.

My life has taken some unexpected turns as of late, and I now find myself in a new and strange city, living with a new and even stranger man. Neither one of these situations were even remotely close to being on my radar six weeks ago, but as we all know the universe has a perverse sense of humor. So here I sit, overwhelmed, enraptured and unemployed in Portland Oregon.

Reasons I have not found a job:

1. Craigslist- Craigslist is a wonderful resource for the unemployed, unless you have way too much time on your hands. In which case Craigslist is an unbelievable distraction. I have spent more time reading "Best of Craigslist", "Rants and Raves" and "Men seeking Women" than the actual job postings. In case David is reading this, I'm not actually reading "Men seeking Women" to find a date, I just find the postings immensely entertaining, hence why I have yet to find a job.

2. My insanely unrealistic standards- After working a series of unsatisfactory jobs, my criteria of things I will no longer do has become impossibly limiting. I don't want to manage. I don't want to work with food. I don't want to work with people, especially stupid people. I don't want to commute more than a mile from my house. I don't want to work at night. I don't want to be tied to a desk all day. Basically I'd like a job where I can work with wine, communicating solely by e-mail, able to set my own hours and get paid 68K. That or the queen of a prosperous, peaceful, well educated population. I have yet to find either of these jobs listed on Craigslist.

3. I'm starving- My new boyfriend is a vegetarian, which is fine and great and all that. I am *mostly* a vegetarian. I say mostly because I don't follow a certain set of rules and if I feel like eating meat once in awhile, I'm going to do it. Usually it's just a weakness for fish, fish tacos specifically. However, occasionally at a certain time of the month I have an overwhelming craving for red meat. This has been one of those months. It's gotten to the point where I'm hallucinating and people are looking like this:





4. The convenience of living in a city, specifically "Trader Joe's"- Utah makes it nearly impossible to buy alcohol. You can't just walk down to the market on the corner to buy a beer or a bottle of wine because all alcohol is sold through state run liquor stores, which are usually located in very inconvenient locations. Being the lazy person I am the idea of driving miles from my home to purchase overpriced beer or wine in the middle of the afternoon isn't too appealing. So I tend to stay sober most of the time. It's a different story here. Trader Joe's is located exactly five blocks from my house. Trader Joe's has aisles of interesting inexpensive bottles of wine and beer from all over the world. Looking at my sad tomato sandwich and thinking to myself "Wow, a beer would sure go nice with this, I'll just run around the corner.." has become almost a daily occurrence. Beer + Me = lousy cover letters.

5. The weather- I think the hype about Portland's weather being so piss poor all the time is a lie perpetuated by local Oregonians to keep people from moving here. I've been here a little over a week and each day has been more gorgeous than the last. 75 degrees and sunny? Well! We better take that motorcycle out to the coast before the weather turns! How about we stop at this cute little bar and have a beer? Say, a walk along the river would be just the thing to do on a beautiful evening. Why don't I just put my laptop away... The fact that David is self-employed and able to take off at a moments notice is not helping either. At all.

So. Keep a good thought for your friend Sare. I'm off to peruse the classifieds once more. Right after I finish this beer of course.