That’s right. If you’re not working, you’re jerking (off), or is that making your own beef jerky. I wouldn’t have known.

No turkey for Christmas, and you can’t afford lamb. Forget the HoneyBaked Ham. Time to glaze your own.

We should all be so lucky to be billionaire golfer Tiger Woods. He may have put himself in a position (okay, maybe a few) that has cost him some endorsements, but he’s not out on the street with a couch by the curb because of an eviction.

While some people say you should be thankful for your health, I say millions of American still pine for wealth.

So your “in list” may be my “out list,” but if there’s one thing we can agree on let it be more sex before text! Yahoo! Who cares what that means. But if you can’t figure it out, then it’s time you read Ann’s List.

She calls it a dating-work site because dating is work.

But this is not Ann’s attempt at conservation.

That’s right, Ann thinks it’s about time we recycle, reuse and reduce our former lovers rather than trash them.

The site’s tag line — “Whole Body Returns” — means that Ann won’t pull a Lorena Bobbit on them. (Lorena’s the gal who cut off of her drunk husband’s penis. Had to do with him not understanding the meaning of “no, no.”)

Under Ann’s rules, if a date wasn’t a match, women would need to be kind and return them to the dating pool.

Ann believes men deserve a second shelf life, much like an old pair of golf clubs.

She’d have five recycling bins—Lazy, Very Lazy, Coach Potato, Cheap and Bone Idle. That seems to be how men become after all the courtship stuff ends.

When they think they’ve gotcha, they return to their former way of life—watching football—and they stop buying you flowers.

Not only would we reduce, reuse, recycle our ex relationships, the site would also feature a link to trade off dating artifacts. That’s memories of better times.

For example, if I could trade my $400 pink bustier for a lavender one, I’d be tickled pink. I can’t imagine ever wearing that one again.

Although men would like it, that would be too weird; having sex with someone else but being reminded of a former lover. Thing is, I can’t bear throwing it away like I’ve done with other past boyfriend gifts. It costs too much!

She can’t think of a second life for all the photographs taken throughout a relationship either, and she doesn’t think that there will ever come a time when she is enthralled to see them again. Deleting them seems to be the best solution.

After all, we seem to delete, or throw away, things we no longer want, from old clothes to toys to furniture, even when they can be recycled.

Employers are guilty, too. Just look at how many employees they’ve deleted since news of the recession surfaced nearly a year ago.

They toy with length and angst over words. They strive to turn impersonal email into a personal message with words that they hope will resonate with recipients so they open the email and take action, and thus raise revenue.

Pitching yourself via email for a job and love mate also begins with the subject line, though I find there is less creativity writing subject lines for job applications as there is when introducing yourself to a stranger to date.

I generally don’t approach men online. So the online dating subject lines I’m about to share with you come from men who’ve emailed me.

But first, I’ll knock out the subject lines I’ve used for job applications when I’m so lucky to have the actual name and email address of a person to send my resume to. Unless the recruitment manager offers instructions, I think playing it safe is the best way to go. I generally type “Applicant” followed by the name of the position or job number. I never put “Pick Me.”

The subject lines I get from my online dating profile vary widely. The bland ones are a variation of “hi,” such as “hello,” “hiya,” and “hey there.” Nothing particularly special or off-putting about them.

Guys also try to connect with me on a sailing level because I point out my love for it in my profile. Some of these subject lines read: “ready to cast off the dock lines,” “ahoy mate,” and “the tiller is in your hands.” I’ve also gotten some weird subject lines, such as “mobguy.” Oh, really?

Of course, a girl always loves to hear how beautiful she is. When I see “wow,” “very cool” and “what a pretty lady,” a smile passes my lips as I click through to read the suitor’s message.

While an effective subject line is a plus, I behave more like a recruiter: I place more emphasis on the cover letter. Please write in complete sentences or thoughts. No typos, and keep it short.

The more social networks grow, the less we interact.

Talking face to face to one another is a lost art, supplanted by email, autoesponders, text messages, Facebook status updates, 140-character tweets and animated emoticons .

The guiltiest gavel goes to Human Resource (HR) departments, which rely on the veil of autoresponders to shield them from dealing with job-thirsty candidates. “No phone calls please” is their mantra in job ads.

Why, I ask?

Why don’t recruiters want to talk to and meet with potential job candidates? “Too busy” is their overused answer.

Nonetheless, we shouldn’t let robotic database searches cull candidates to fill job vacancies to enrich our knowledge-based economy. After all, career counseling experts emphasize the importance of networking to find a job, which should mean picking up the phone but often means blasting email to former colleagues.

But a good chat flies in the face of HR practices.

I think we are all guilty of relying on one-dimensional communication at one time or another. It’s easy, quick and lets us deal with uncomfortable situations in a comfortable way. Following up on the status of a job application is often an unpleasant task. No response from an email query is often the HR response.

I find this also applies to the personas one can expect to encounter with online dating. Men fall into one of three categories: The Eager Beavers, The Coffee Clatch Club or the Dancing Princes.

The Eager Beavers openly acknowledge that email isn’t their thing, and they want to meet you right away. Sometimes, no doubt, it is true they don’t like to write. I think more often they use it as an excuse to skip right to a meeting because their goal is to evaluate your f—kability and, if you pass, hit on you for sex as soon as they can.

The coffee date is the raison d’être of the online dating crowd. Members of the Coffee Clatch Club move, after a few exchanges of email, to an invitation for a cup of coffee. No big deal, just coffee. Who could say no to that, right? If you say no, they’ll suggest a phone call, but their goal is to get you into a convenient Starbucks, spend as little money as possible and then see what happens.

The Dancing Princes simply skirt the whole question of meeting in person. They communicate almost exclusively through the keyboard. Their social life powers up at login and powers down with the click of the “Shut Down” link. In between, I imagine they live in hibernation mode. I also imagine these guys as being good at text but lousy at sex, but who will ever know for sure?

So, how do we go back to communicating effectively? How about a simple pledge that works like electronically simulated eye contact when we email/text/tweet/Facebook to the people we’re communicating with — “For the next entire minute, I am going to be paying attention only to you.”

Where does that leave everybody else—the millions of minions who are struggling to survive the double whammy of job and love losses?

Ann’s Answer: Scrambling to perfect their resumes and free them from spelling and grammatical errors, and optimize them with career-enhancing keywords.

If only we took such good care of our online dating profiles.

Like in job hunting, first impressions count. Perhaps more in online dating because if chemistry strikes we need to deal with the sex thing and how to time the first time. In a job, we stop at the handshake.

I appreciate a dating profile that’s free of spelling errors and online dating clichés, especially the “I’m as comfortable in Ferragamos as I am in jeans” one, or something like that, and the “I’m not looking to play games.”

Gee, I kind of like chess, but I’m sure the profiler meant something else, though I have no idea what. I also wouldn’t find it comfortable to slip under my satin sheets in a pair of shoes.

Most importantly, I appreciate a decent profile picture. I’ve seen too many online dating profiles that use a site’s silhouette avatar with the message, “Ask me for my photo.”

Should I really have to ask? Don’t date seekers know that a picture is as important in an online dating profile as a job seeker’s educational background in a resume? Obviously, some men (and I presume women) just don’t get it.

You’d think that the billion-dollar digital camera industry would produce better online dating profile pitchas. If it’s not guys using their cellphone to snap a self-portrait (always a bad idea), they’re using their bathroom mirror to reflect back an image of themselves, which turns their head into a giant light flare. Really, I’m not ISO an incandescent lightbulb, even if your chest is hairy.

I also don’t want to see guys wearing sunglasses or cropping out their ex girlfriend or wife. No one does their ex justice by doing this.

I see too many cheek-to-cheek photos of happier days, with an ex’s hand over his shoulder, now cropped to display his grinning face with the remnants of her fuzzy hair near his cheek and unattached female body parts. Fingers that don’t connect to anything are especially freaky.

Some guys, however, don’t even bother to extricate the ex. They just use a Bic and scribble round blue circles over her face so no one can see what she looks like. Scan and upload. I think that points up the degradation of relationships.

As much as photos lie, it’s the effort to post a good one that counts.

Download audio file (frog.mp3)

I told you so.

Adventure is as overused in dating profiles, as the word multitasking is in job descriptions.

Whether you’re in the market for a new job or love life, potential partners in both realms infuse their descriptions with too many adjectives and adverbs, and expectations.

Employers describe an ideal candidate as a person with excellent communication skills who can work cross functionally in a fast-paced and exciting work environment. Your reward: A competitive (sometimes generous) compensation, vacation and benefits package.

The same could be said of men when I read their profile, which should be called their hopes and dreams. Like employers, sometimes I think they’re looking for the impossible.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that employers increasingly want specialists of some sort or another. Perhaps that explains why there are so many specialized online dating sites.

To me, Match.com appeals to the masses of date seekers just like Monster.com is for mainstream job seekers.

So, if we’re becoming an increasingly specialized marketplace, perhaps we need to take that road less traveled.

For love seekers, head over to LoveIsGreen.org, a dating source for vegetarians, vegans, and raw-food people. DateAGolfer.com and Randomate.com, which specializes in speed dating online, are two others.

Career sites are similarly specialized. Check out Cool Works to find a seasonal job or career at ski resorts, ranches, theme parks, tour companies. CampusRN is solely geared to entry-level or new graduate nursing candidates. And, my favorite: Ned’s Job of the Week Job, which posts communication-related jobs.

As my son’s psychiatrist once told me, “There’s a peer for everybody.”

I’d like to believe that as I continue my job and love search.

You see, Yin is this 3-foot-tall little Chinese gal who’s also known as Yellow Woman.

Yang is not much bigger but hails from the hinterlands of North Dakota and wears lots of feathers. Think Hiawatha. Some people call him Red Man. Together, they created the Orangemen of Syracuse University.

Just kidding.

Nonetheless, life is all about yin-yang. Put concisely—balance.

By definition, yin and yang are complementary opposites within a greater whole and constantly interact. They never exist in absolute stasis.

Ann believes in that ancient Chinese philosophy, but in today’s world I think we, as a hurting nation that lives with an unemployment rate approaching double digits, struggle with balance.

However, we don’t struggle talking about it. So many life coaches talk about about the importance of striking a balance that it’s become a cliché.

For example, if you’re so lucky to work and earn a living, you might work too much—out of necessity or stupidity—and not leave enough quality time for your family, lover or yourself. If you eat too much, you’ll get fat. If you hoard your money, you’ll grow rich but emotionally poor, and on and on.

Ann has been guilty of all of the above except hoarding her money. When she did have a padded bank account, she was generous with others and never expected anything back in return. She believes that you get back what you give.

Ann also has been overweight—up to 173 pounds. She hasn’t weighed that in eons. She’s a happy 123 pounds. She still goes back and forth between working too much and not enough.

She’d love to restore the forces of yin-yang in her life so that her unemployed status would transform from reality to a memory. [The temping doesn't cut it.]

But as the father of Taoism, Lao Tzu, wrote, “….If you want to get rid of something, you must first allow it to flourish….”

To the powers that represent me on Capitol Hill, are you listening?

I’ll even go with rest of the staff for a lunchtime pizza party to celebrate the birthday of some guy in IT. In that case, I don’t even eat the pizza. I’m just there out of a sense of social obligation. I should try to be a part of the work family, even if it is just a foster work family.

My home life is also pretty confused these days when it comes to obligations.

No, I really do not want to go to the park, or the pool, with my ex and my children. I really want to go the air conditioned gym and tone up my thighs. They need the attention more than my kids, but who could ever admit such a thing? Just kidding.

My ex will do just fine caring for the kids, and better he should care for them, and I care for my thighs than the inverse. Just kidding. But I usually go.

They want to eat at their favorite diner, which serves food that both tastes bad and is bad for you. I go. Easier than arguing.

My ex argues that I am obligated to fold the clothes, help with the landscaping and home repairs, put my bike away and other things that I would otherwise consider reasonable. Coming from him, though, my sense of obligation has been suspended.

Having him being hostile toward me isn’t enjoyable. But soon after we start getting along again, he’ll lust after me and that’s probably just as burdensome. Yes, okay, I have obligations to you, I think, but sorry, I’m just not going to worry it. The cost of honoring those obligations and the cost of ignoring them is about the same.

Why give a creditor the satisfaction that he’s gotcha, when you can take advantage of technology—caller ID and voice mail—to send him to electronland?

But yesterday afternoon, as I stood in the kitchen waiting for a hot dog to grill to perfection, the phone rang. I bent over to see, the number, that is. I wear glasses, but I didn’t have them on.

My eyes stood at attention—a girl was calling. Kristi (yes, her real name) flashed on the Caller ID. I decided to pick up, thinking that she was calling for my ex. Sure, enough, she asked for him.

I could tell from the hey-what’s-going-on-here tone in her voice that she wasn’t expecting another female to answer the phone.

“No, not, here,” I said. I crossed my fingers, hoping she’d ask, “Who’s this?” because I was dying to tell her, “His ex wife.”

But that question didn’t come up. She just wanted me to leave a message that Kristi called. “Will do,” I said. Bye, click, and it was over.

Such is life when you live with your ex because you both can’t afford to get your own digs. He’s unemployed, too, but has some hot prospects.

Yeah, we could sell the house, but my ex is so against that because of the kids, and it’s in the divorce agreement to keep it for seven years.

Once the financial crisis is over, and I’ve gotta believe that the financial sun will rise for me, I’m outta here, because living with your ex is mentally unhealthy, among other things.

Like today, my ex left to take the train to Baltimore for a hook up with a woman he met online through Match.com. I thought that hook up meant an electrical connection. He said hook up refers to a casual sexual encounter, sort of like a one-night stand.

My ex said 85 percent of people who meet virtually but see each other in real time and space meet for the purpose of a hook up. [You got to wonder where he reads this stuff.] I don’t know if hook ups lead to second dates. I doubt it.

If Ann needs a hook up, she’s going tol call an electrician. She never figured out whether it was the red or white wire that’s hot. She also has a thing for men in uniforms. Coming soon—the UPS man.

It was like taking physics in high school. I mean, am I ever going to really need to know this?

So, while I was going through my online dating phase, it hit me. I’m going to get completely lost if I don’t somehow find a way to keep track of all these men hitting on me. For this, I need something like… Salesforce.

Some (most) of the guys who try to get my attention, I just delete immediately (sorry guys). There are a few I consider, at least at the moment I first meet them, hot prospects.

And then there are all those in between. They could be great. I don’t know. I’ve just gotten behind reading profiles, and besides, only the most confident are gonna get anywhere near their goal.

It’s really that hot prospects group that has a serious chance, although I don’t always check my work so the system isn’t perfect.

This still creates a pool of a whole bunch of suitors. I don’t have as much time to date as I’d like, and I don’t want to be random about it, so I created a small database to track the men seeking my hand, or any other body part for that matter. It isn’t comprehensive, the number of body parts, that is.

I just make notes on email addresses, sometime phone numbers, and a few stray facts that can help me remember who the hell it is when they call me. Likes dirt bikes. Brother is an NFL lineman. Stuff like that. It comes in REALLY handy.

I’m terrible with names, and, before implementing my new system, I confuse different guys all the time. I could, I suppose, use this to tell different things to different guys, but I can’t see the point of such complexity.

Most importantly, I keep my database sorted by a rudimentary ranking. Each record may have different stuff in it, but what really counts is where you rank. The currently top-ranked guy gets Saturday night, date night. His leading competitor gets Friday, maybe, or something else.

As for what they get from me, that is all improvisational. Like most women, I am persuadable by the right man, in the right setting. None of the men know about the list, of course (or they didn’t before now, anyway).

Okay, yeah, it is a little cold, doing it this way. But I’m a practical girl, and this is a practical solution to the “I’m sorry, who is this again?” problem.