Editor’s Note: originally published July 20, 2011

By Paula Burba

“He’s just so fucking perky. You just want to punch him in the face,” I said to Bill while watching the “white box challenge” episode of Design Star the other night. “Oh, I don’t think she has any self-doubt at all. I think bitch needs some self-doubt,” I went on, correcting a judge’s assessment.

Then Selling LA came on and before changing channels I declared to Bill, innocent bystander, “Who is this jackass? I mean, does this guy really exist? He’s an animated Abercrombie mannequin on steroids.”

Yeah… it’s been one month of unemployment, alright.

I don’t think I’ve been unemployed this long since I started working when I was 17 — a while ago. So far I have:

• Become reacquainted with the fear of how many ways red tape can triple-lutz, triple-salchow cut a bitch.
• Made a habit of roasting asparagus so that it’s the tastiest. most-consumed vegetable where two months ago it was unheard of in this semi-humble abode.
• Fretted over creating 500-word essays to put on soon-critically-acclaimed Web site, generating no income, just writing practice, introspection on integrity and other such unmarketable, virtually useless commodities.
• Fretted further about my essays coming out stone cold sober. “When did I become stone cold sober?” I asked myself. “Where did my sense of humor go? What happened? Who am I? How did I get here? Why, oh why?” I further inquired.
• Got Twitter and LinkedIn accounts to up my networking/tech-savvy game while trolling pathetic job sites to find precious few serious-potential jobs to meet even the state-minimum one application a week. Began to see Internet as soulless leech of time.

So Paula, in light of these accomplishments and in considering your future here, I feel this is a good time to reevaluate your achievements. I’ve come up with a five-point plan outlining how you might improve your performance in the coming months.

1. Strive to step outside your home at least once a day.
2.  When you do step outside, do not do so wearing the same pajamas or “sweat” clothing you wore the previous day.
3. Boot camp your brokeass self. Like Jillian Michaels, make yourself rue the day you were born fatty until you bleed and sweat and spew pop-psychology like so much vomit as you torture yourself at the… um, the living room with a rebounder, yoga mat, dumbbells, and that sidewalk around the damn park across the street.
4. Begin reading in earnest those 600-odd books you insist you can’t part with, now collecting dust on your also-must-have bookshelves.
5. Find, invent or hallucinate a way to earn a living either on your own or working for someone who knows you personally, speaks to you by name and gives a slight more than a shit about you as a fellow person.

When you have successfully tackled these items, Paula, your performance will be re-evaluated at such time and rewarded accordingly. Now get back to work.