Although I officially call myself a freelancer, in truth I really just feel — and behave — like an unemployed writer/editor. I’ve been looking for an appropriate full-time position for almost two years — and am a firm believer that the official unemployment statistics in the U.S. are flawed. People not claiming unemployment insurance are not necessarily employed.

Yesterday was in some ways a typical, and in other ways a very unusual day in my life. Instead of having full-time employment prospects, I was offered a variety of non-paying-but-cool or low-paying-and-temporary gigs. However, the sheer number of them in a short space of time made me think that things may just start moving in the right direction soon.

I received a call from the editor of a men’s fitness magazine, who needs a senior editor to fill-in until the guy he hopes to hire accepts the position and reports to work. This will be a two- to three-week gig. I told him I would like to think about it for a few hours and call him back. Good thing I did that!

Not 10 minutes later, the phone rang again. The deputy managing editor of a personal finance magazine wanted to know if I could come in for two weeks next month to fact check. (I have been fact checking to smooth over the fallow periods while job-hunting and freelance-writing.) The two gigs were potentially in conflict, so I gave that editor the heads up and promised to let him know if I could be more definitive about my availability within the next few days.

Then, a half hour later, a friend calls. He catches me up on his new entrepreneurial venture — a magalog (we hate that word!) for home, entertaining, lifestyle and more called Mike at Home. Would I like to be the editor of it? After making sure he was aware that although I have personal interest in home design, architecture, decorating, food, gardening and entertaining, I have no professional editorial experience with those industries, I accepted. After all, in the space of one hour I was offered work in men’s fitness, investing and personal finance, and now, home and lifestyle. That must say something about my versatility!

So, starting Monday I’ll be an editor for a while. No office, just a desk in an open newsroom. Someday, and I hope it’s sooner than later, I would like to be able to close the door and concentrate when I need to. Or, take a phone call without feeling like all invisible radars are tuned in my direction. I’m reading about the inventor of the modern cubicle, and one sentence he wrote struck me like an icepick between the shoulder blades: “Over-concern for privacy may indicate retreat from responsibility and sagging motivation.”

Maybe that’s true. Or maybe that guy doesn’t understand that people have different ways of working. I’ve found that when I work in an open or modified cubicle office, I tend to work much longer hours. I don’t start feeling effective until after 4, when everyone else starts winding down and the office gets quieter and empties out. When deadlines loom, I would sometimes go in several hours early, and find my productivity slacking just about 10:30 a.m., when the office would be in full force. Either way, that’s a lot of hours wasted.