Fair's fair, LeCastor. Laurel can lay it on a little thick from time to time, but when it comes down to core values, I've found myself agreeing with her more often than not.

She's not doing the applehood, motherpie, and status-symbol routine: she's doing the work she's set out to do. And if she has doubts or regrets, and is taking them out here, she's not the only one.

And she'll get lethal if anyone touches kids. With the FLDS in the news, I find that warming.

www.davidterryart.com

I've just come back from touring David Terry's website.

This is the real thing, people. His technique is superb, and the ideation behind the text -and- the humor are remarkable.

It's representational, non-digital, and classic.

Wow.

You're working at home telemarketing a shady product when you're not the sales type, and day by day, the isolation is making you less so.

The best time to find a job is when you have one, but you're under surveillance. Not good. What's worse is that if this product/employer blows up, you're going to have it on your resume post blow-up.

People do go through bad patches. It doesn't mean they're failures -- especially not at 24. It means they're going through a bad patch and have the opportunity to do, consciously, what other people do by instinct or connections. I think the advice about career counseling, therapy, and full-time temping is good.

If you have any suspicion that your home computer is monitored, go to an internet cafe and start checking out employment agencies on Google. Read the articles -- they may be fluff, but they're better than nothing -- on Careerbuilder and Monster. And work through the exercises in WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE.

You may not find a dream job; I don't know how many "dream jobs" there are. But you'll find one that won't bully you and will let you sleep at night and will help you build your self-respect. This process of seeking out, rather than falling into, a job will help with that.

Good luck. It's going to be hard, but it will be honest.

I agree that being without work or benefits is not a good place to be at any time, much less in the current economy. And, being a person who always strategizes worst-case, I agree with Laurel about not relying on your boyfriend to support you. Besides, it's a bad habit to get into.

When you look for temp agencies, look for the ones that will carry you on -their- books as an employee, offer you health care benefits after X date and vacation time.

Yes, I'm on the East Coast. But many of the larger agencies are chains. If you go in and interview with them, or search their websites, you may see this information. If not, ask.

You -will- learn something from this. You will learn how to job hunt. It's a hard truth in life that sometimes the best qualified person doesn't get the job; the person who knows best how to present him or herself to the employer gets it.

You need to learn how to be that person.

I don't think this has anything to do with cougaring. I think it has a good deal to do with making oneself seen and making oneself heard as one is and sounds, rather than as defined by someone else. Silenced is golden on the subject.

So is T.H. White in "The Once and Future King," talking about a sense beyond the five senses -- one of balance.

Whatever else his problems were (and they were many), he nailed it on that one.

As you get older, you learn that you are what you are, not what other people choose to call you. This is a valuable lesson because other people have their interests, not yours, at heart. That's logical enough, but when the other interests are antipathetic, knowing that it "ain't necessarily so" what they're saying makes it very easy to shrug off unwanted and inaccurate feedback. And to know when it makes sense, too.

It enables you not to be drowned out of the conversation or walked through on the sidewalk -- because without it, given the marketing-that-is-lifestyle these days, you will be.

Personally, I agree with you that financial and intellectual independence are key tactics, but they're only part of the game.

Did I express that badly? Yes, I know: older women become invisible and inaudible -- unless they've developed the character to do what I call Raise Aspect. Sometimes, it involves sticking out elbows too.

The invisibility and inaudibility come from young women as well as young men; some older people know better, although some don't.

Dealing with it is tricky. If you decide you want to opt out, though, it's an individual decision. I prefer not to: in fact, it's an economic necessity that I do not. Of course, I"m not silly enough to pretend to be young and hot: the old-fashioned phrase "mutton dressed as lamb" comes obnoxiously to mind. But I've studied enough European ladies of a certain age to know that when they want to, they can make young and hot seem green and immature. I'm working on it. Is it a competition? Only if someone insists on making it one.

At this stage, I completely goggle at what seems like the assurance of many younger people. They know what they know, and it's important, and people should recognize it. I don't know how much of that's true, and how much of it's bravado, but it's something I'm trying to learn from them. I'm sure I'll feel even better when I learn as much of it as I consider appropriate.