The Year I Buckled Down: Jobs of 2013
    Remember that time I decided to get certified as a personal fitness instructor so I could legitimately teach a punk rock aerobics jump-roping class? To pay for it, I started working two jobs in an isolated border town, detailing yachts by day and serving fine dining by night. This resulted in total exhaustion (but decent spending money). Fortunately, I got laid off. I say fortunately because I don’t like working but was raised with a protestant work ethic and have an internal motivation that makes it hard to quit something even though you hate it.      Being unemployed was perfect. I was getting paid to look for a job, something I do all the time anyway. It provided me with just the right amount of entitlement and guilt needed to re-embarked on the hot pursuit of chasing my dreams. This quickly took the form of trying to perfect my barista skills by pulling “at home” espresso shots and making weird hair accessories to sell in local shops and on Esty (turns out ETSY is a vicious, cut-throat rat-race of introverted women with hubris regarding their crafts, a breeding ground for scribble art feminists! Not my scene I decided, actually I rather enjoyed the scribble art). Also, turns out very few people want to buy weird hair fascinators (mad props to all the rockabilly ladies who know what a “fascinator” is).      Now what happened next is kind of a blur, but I was dead set on resurrecting Danny Marathon. Low and behold, people on YouTube make money putting out weekly/daily videos. I WANTED THIS. Making jokes from your bedroom. Yes please. Getting paid to let people watch you put on your make-up. Well, okay I wasn’t ready to stoop that low (Squirrel Girl was, just not me). I devised a plan. Bought equipment. Created content. For those of you who followed me and Teresa’s Bogus LA adventure of 2009 and experienced it from conception, you are privileged enough to see the transformation from uh…whatever it was, to um…whatever it is now (and whatever it will become… fingers crossed it’s a highly successful channel that will soon be bought out by Dreamworks – this is what’s happening to existing channels guys! The big leagues are getting their dirty fingers in the game).
    So now what? It’s only the beginning I suppose? I have never worked harder for what is currently $50.08 in ad revenue. This works out to about five cents an hour. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so quick to drop the personal trainer career path, which reminds me, I just got an email saying my certification has expired. Also, Etsy keeps hassling me for that 40 cents I owe her for listing the items that never sold.