Eighteen months ago I was a brilliant, young, witty, zaftig sitcom writer. I had it all: wee hour rewrites, screeching Diva alerts and the contempt of the Religious Right. Last staffing season when I didn't get a job, veteran writers told me I was still brilliant, it was just the worst staffing season they'd seen in 25 years. This staffing season as I recline nervously, trying to maintain a wisp of a smile and my sense of karmic fairplay, veteran writers are telling me I'm still brilliant, it's just the worst staffing season they've seen in 35 years. Based on their wisdom and assurances I've decided to take a moment to reflect on my eighteen months of 'down time.' And based on my life experience, 'reflect' is how poor people who can't afford any leisure activities refer to the eternal search for a silver lining amidst all the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

One of the first lessons of my unemployment was that no one outside Los Angeles County actually uses the phrase 'down time'. And as soon as one of your sisters blabs to your grandmother that you have a large chunk of 'down time' on your hands, it won't be long before your broke ass is on a plane to Florida to clean out said grandmother's closets. One important note: always use the ten hours of flight time to-and-fro to ponder the meaning of your life. Don't try to read or write or flirt. The time spent precariously floating above the planet is best for searching, seeking and fretting. And if you start thinking too intensely too early and have an 'episode' in the terminal before departure, sometimes they give you free drink tickets.

I had a burst of creative energy when I returned home from Grandma's and I wrote for ten hours straight. Unemployment sure gives you time to be productive.

Having grown up in poverty, initially I did not see this flux in income as a problem. Like all good artistic types, I'm a fabulous waitress. But after a fall and the reconstruction of my ankle in 1995 I was told I couldn't wait tables ever again. More specifically, I was told that it would be "technically illegal" for me to wait tables again. So, I found a dive bar in a gang neighborhood staffed with illegal aliens and applied for a job. Much to my surprise, they didn't hire me. They said my social security number was flagged in the state computer check as an insurance impossibility. "How the hell does the California Employment Commission flag my bionic ankle and not all of the illegal immigrants working here?" I asked. "They all bought good social security numbers," he replied. I left the bar--after enjoying a complimentary basket of fries that sit on my left butt cheek to this day--and headed to Macarthur Park to check the prices on good social security numbers. They all thought I was an undercover cop and ran from my car. Except the guy selling the really stinky incense. Him, I had to roll off my hood.

I had a burst of creative energy when I returned home from dropping the incense guy off at the emergency room and I wrote for twelve hours straight. Unemployment sure gives you time to be productive.

I lamented my brokeness to friends and was reminded again how definitions of brokeness differ. I discovered this vast deviation while in college. I received an academic scholarship to an expensive university. All my college friends were rich kids with trust funds. I learned that when one of them said they were 'broke', it just meant that they didn't have any cash in their pocket and needed to visit a bank or ATM. If they said they were 'really broke' it meant that they had spent the allowance their parents gave them for the month and would have to take money out of the account their grandparents gave them for 'incidentals'. If my college friends ever got hysterical--crying, throwing bottles of Chanel No. 5 across the room--and claimed to be 'totally broke', that meant that their parents refused to increase their allowance and they would have to call their broker to sell a few stocks from the portfolio they'd inherited at birth. I had hoped to find people more monetarily my equal when I came to Hollywood-Land of Starving Artists, but it didn't really work out that way. It's no fun to whine to people who can't comprehend or commiserate. So, I just quietly missed not having a trust fund. Even though they say you can't miss what you've never had. I think that's a fib. Because I definitely miss not having a trust fund.

I had a burst of creative energy after making the mistake of whining to my grandmother about being poor and getting the 'what we ate during the Depression' lecture and I wrote for fifteen hours straight. Unemployment sure gives you time to be productive.

And then desperation set in. I registered with temp agencies who turned me away because I seemed overqualified and they feared I would move on quickly when I found a writing job. So I screamed at the temp agency woman about 'moving on' from temp work kind of being the point of registering with a TEMPORARY employment service. I went on "Win Ben Stein's Money" and didn't. (I actually lost pathetically. Easy questions but I just never mastered that damn buzzer. But I looked really cute. And I pitched myself for his writing staff as I lost because I have that sort of shameless networking in my blood.) I decided to hock the jewelry I'd been given by all my suitors but when I opened my jewelry box all I found was a calligraphied list titled "Every Man Who Ever Dumped Me, Rejected Me Or Blew Me Off In A Bar." I remembered that I had no male suitors prior to my current beau but I did chuckle devilishly as I reread my hit list. I put my car up for sale and almost had a deal until the Audi people called to tell me I couldn't sell a car I was leasing. I sold my only valuable baseball card to buy a new outfit for a party I knew would be attended by showrunners, one of whom held the keys to the last job available to me. At this party, a woman who is a shitty writer made a scene and cried about being out of work and paraded around with her melon-headed baby who couldn't go to Mommy & Me classes because his mommy was out of work. The following Monday this shitty writer was given the job which was my last hope. I brazenly called the showrunner to ask why she was selected over me. He responded that I was definitely the better writer, but that she has a child to support. And he hated seeing a woman cry.

I had a burst of creative energy after harnessing my hatred for this woman and the system that rewards such behavior and I wrote for thirty-six hours straight. Unemployment sure gives you time to be productive.

So, I type away after eighteen months, still unemployed yet inspired. Still wondering what my next step should be. At this point, I figure I'm either statistically screwed for life in this business, or I'm due for one hell of an upswing.

My money--if I had any--would be on upswing.

I called my grandmother because she always makes me feel better, even when she lectures me. I told her I thought I might need a better agent. After I explained to her what an agent was, she said I definitely needed a new one since mine, "Seems like she has about as much sense as a rooster has donuts." I told Grandma I was getting pretty depressed about my unemployment and feared I might hit an emotional bottom soon. Grandma told me to look on the bright side, "At least you don't have to pay for sex. Paying for sex is the most depressing thing on the planet your Papa always said."

I had a burst of creative energy after talking to Grandma and I wrote for seventy-two hours straight. Grandmother's sure give you the inspiration to be productive.