You asked for it! I am a writer on a new journey. Stuck in the workaday world for money most of my life, I was recently given the gift/nightmare of being laid off just before my 52nd birthday. My serious attempts to get hired during the past two months are quickly confirming that myth we hear about the impossibility of getting hired after 50. I am facing the reality that, likely, I have a year ahead of me of collecting unemployment checks and not working, simply because that's what has fallen into my lap.

Of course, I struggle with writer's procrastination and fears about losing inspiration, not finishing, getting a job, not getting a job, husband turning on me for being a freeloader, dying alone under a bridge on a 10-degree night with a cheap bottle of vodka -- need I go on. But perhaps those are other letters for other days. Today: a more practical question.

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