She is a stranger more strange than anyone in the land she is in, and she wonders if they sense this, if they will ball their fists and gently have her sniff before taking their seats.

She is flummoxed and exasperated already, with herself, as she surveys the calm faces of the writers’ group, filing in to Gayle’s oddly sparse, yet oddly cozy living room. A sitting room? A setting room? What room is this? Where is she? Where is she, ever, anymore?

So in my continuing quest to upgrade the slime trail of my career to a slightly more 3D installation—maybe a lumpy sludge trail—I joined LinkedIn, the Facebook for “professionals.”

As a longtime freelance writer who’s taken on more random assignments than a windshield takes on bug species, let me just be clear: it ain’t no easy feat to list what you’ve done as a freelancer and make yourself sound remotely stable or solid, no matter how talented you are. Because you wind up filling in the “How long did you work at this position?” boxes by going, Er, let’s see, that article took me a month to write, so, January 2004 to February 2004? And that one, that was a two-week gig, so….

Which, of course, is exactly what employers are dying to see. “Here’s our shining star! Look at the way she lurched from gig to gig like a one-legged drunk on a pub crawl!”