I think you could very easily say that you are a writer.  You are, after all, a writer.  Whether or not you have sold anything recently is a pedestrian inquiry not likely to be made by most courteous people.  Then just discuss an enthusiasm.  I discovered this twenty years ago that saying I am a writer was a more useful tactic than saying I am a lawyer in certain social settings.   [And lawyers are writers, if not always the best.] 

 I have sometimes tried to coyly answer this inquiry with hobbies that I do.  If the question is what do you do, and your main hobby is studying the history of the English play, why not respond with that?  Sometimes I think we get so bogged down in trying to stereotype people that we never even really meet them.  What a shame to meet people year after year and never have a clue who they are.

I think what troubles people is that Madoff is trying to keep a large number of very expensive assets immune to creditors, even though fraud is a major exception to the protection of the bankruptcy laws.  I would rather have Madoff’s two homes sold and his remaining assets liquidated and those monies released to the bankruptcy trustee to repay his victims than to let it go as what’s done is done.  Sure a Ponzi scheme means that clawback may be required from those victims who thought they were earning money.  But the money did not disappear, even though it may be hard to find.  No one is going to get their return on investment, but for some it would be a life saver to get most of their original investments back.

Don’t worry.  I would not dream of using a credit card any more than I would dream of using a loan shark.  

 Before you leap to attack those who lost money to Madoff, remember that some of the most successful people, and some of the most august institutions of higher learning and businesses like insurance companies as well as nonprofits  and charities lost money to Madoff.  And therefore, every single American is adversely affected by Madoff’s crimes.   http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/st_madoff_victims_20081215.h…

Hmmm, an underclass with billions of taxpayer loans and who is still raising credit card interest rates at an alarming rate on people who pay on time every month.   I don’t think you get out much, Liz. 

I could introduce you to the real underclass.  Some of them are living in a tent city outside Sacramento.  Some of them are piling their belongings into the back of pickup trucks and taking off.  Some of them are huddled outside a courtroom in NYC, waiting to see Madoff go to prison.  

When I got my first apartment at twenty, I was alarmed to discover that I did not really know how to cook for myself.  I could read, so I would make recipes from the food sections of newspapers.  But I had really never learned how to make much more than sandwiches, cookies and cakes in home economics.  I think I lived off French Onion soup and ham sandwiches for weeks.  I have since made up for it, learning how to cook many different ways, and now I grow herbs as well.  I sure wish there had been an edible schoolyard when I was a kid!

Alice is a treasure.  I used to bump into her frequently at her breakfast place, Cafe Fanny.   But when I first had breakfast at Chez Panisse in 1971, the dish I had was overcooked, no doubt because they had been discovered and there were more people than cooks.  I do love her cookbooks.  And when I feel like a splurge, there is nothing better than dinner downstairs at Chez Panisse.

 I do hope there will eventually be edible schoolyards across America.