Today is the day to eat some rock candy.

I will be taking the day off on Monday in honor of my birthday and also because I will be searching for my tax return which I'm sure I will have lost by then.

It is awesome-women day on my blogs today. On MBToolBox.com I interview Jennifer Armstrong of Sirens and Entertainment Weekly Magazines. If you're reading this and you're a woman and you like to write and you're smart, go send them something now.

Here, I interview a woman I decided I worshipped after listening to her on "Fresh Air" a few weeks ago. She a consulting producer on "Scrubs," one of my favorite shows, and also the author of the new book Mixed: My Life in Black and White, about life growing up the daughter of a Black Panther mother and a white father. Previously, she was known for her first book The Broke Diaries. Let's get to it.

The Angela Nissel Interview: Slightly Less Than Twenty Questions

What are some of your favorite TV shows currently on the air?
1) The Office. If any of my friends say they don't like that show, they're immediately dead to me.

2) Law and Order: CI. I actually get caught up in the teaser of this show every time. I scream at the TV. (Oh my god! No they didn't run her over with the car and the leave her in the street! Rewind that! That's crazy!") I feel smart because I think I have the case solved but by the end I feel dumb again because I was all wrong. It hurts but I keep doing it.

3) A & E's 48 Hours. I don't have a crime fetish, I have a cop fetish. Burnt out cops / detectives say some of the funniest things I've ever heard. They've given up on life, everyone is evil to them and dammit, they just want to go home and see their kids.

And of course, Scrubs…

What are your favorites from the past?
Living Single!! I wanted to be Queen Latifah's character when I graduated college. Who wouldn't want to own Flava magazine?

Knight Rider. Only because my mother told me David Hasselhoff was half-black.

In Living Color. I was in high school when this show first aired. I thought the un-PCness was brilliant (Handi-man? Anyone?)

What is your typical schedule for writing for Scrubs? Does each writer write their own episodes or is it more collaborative?
We're really lucky in that we have pretty set hours. We usually work from 9:30AM until about 6 or 7PM. Some comedy rooms work 10AM to 11PM everyday, including weekends. We start the season earlier than the actors and crew figuring out what the scope of the year should be… and sometimes we actually stick to that.

Once we outline what is going to happen in an episode, a writer is assigned to it. That writer takes it home, works out the dialogue and jokes and in a week, he or she returns with a completed script. Every writer then reads that completed script and tears it to shreds. ("This joke isn't funny. This scene drags on. This is actually the worse script I've ever read - take the day off and rethink your career plans.") Then we all start on page one and rewrite most the script. This can take up to a week, or more, if we have time. We stop rewriting it when we're all too tired to make any more changes or the actors are on set threatening to strike unless that we hand it over. This happens with every single script.

What does a consulting producer do?
My mother asks that all the time. I still don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing.

The "consulting" part signifies that I don't come in everyday, I'm just called on when necessary, like when the staff needs to know how a black person would say a certain line or when Donald Faison says a slang word they don't understand.

Kidding!

Really, in TV, the "producer" means that I am no longer a baby writer and have a tiny bit more say in script stuff. The "consulting" adjective just signifies (is that the right word? I'm a writer not an editor…) that I am not on staff full-time this season (I took time of for the book tour.)

I once read somewhere that many people consider "Scrubs" to be one of the more accurate depictions of relationships between friends of mixed cultural backgrounds (at least in the realm of TV.) Do you agree with this? Do you think there are any others that also do a pretty good job?
I think it's pretty accurate. I hate shows where people are "best friends" with people of other races and race never comes up. Of course it comes up, not everyday, maybe not even every month, but if you're best friends with someone, it's coming up once in while!

Zach and Donald are good friends in real life so a lot of the funny things they do, we just steal and put in the script. What a novel concept - study a real interracial friendship and put everything they do in a script to make the friendship seem real.

How sad that it's hard for me to even think of a show with mixed cultural friendships - not coworkers, but actual friends. I wonder if Grey's Anatomy has a good example. I'm just catching up to the show. I need to get the daggone DVD.

Did you ever feel the need to prove that you're cool, or one of the guys, as the lone women among the writing staff on the show?
Ha! We're comedy writers, none of us are cool! And we have four women on a staff of twelve! We make up one fourth of the writing staff - that is a huge number on a comedy writing staff. None of us want to be one of the guys. It's too fun to commiserate with each other and talk about them.

The women do have one rule for the men. If they have to pass gas, they have to take a "fart walk." Men, no matter their age, still think audible farts are funny. Before the "fart walk" policy was instituted, the room would smell like a farm and the women refused to open their mouths to pitch.

It seems that now you probably don't need to practice many of the techniques you utilized in "The Broke Diaries." But do you still use any out of habit or just to save up money just in case?
I am Thrift Shop Queen. I love L.A. and Beverly Hills thrift shops because rich folks will give away anything. Especially after award shows. Half of the low-end goody bag stuff ends up at the Salvation Army. I bet half of my furniture used to be in Reese Witherspoon's house.

Every parent teaches different lessons about money to their kids. If and when you have children, what will you impart upon then based on your experiences?
Rich people are crazy. Strive for upper-middle class, at most.

My kids, even if I am a millionaire, will have some kind of job. More than college, more than internships, customer service jobs taught me how to get along with people and taught me how hard it is to make money. I'm not spoiling my kids if they get A's, I'm spoiling them if the lady trying to return a ripped dress that she bought three years ago says that my child was courteous to her.

I identify a lot when you discuss how much your mother's input on your writing means to you. Does that affect what you will and will not write, i.e. have you ever purposefully not included something in a book or a piece because you were worried about what your mom (or anybody else) would think?
Ouch. You just hit a soft spot, Claire. My mother is so mad because of some things I included in Mixed. The crazy thing is, it's not the stuff I thought she'd be mad at. One of the things she's mad at is my mention of when my babysitter used to tell her friends that I was her child because she thought her friends would look up to her if she had a white husband.

My mother is mad because I never told her about that when I was younger. "Why did I have to read about that in a book? If I had known that I would have gotten rid of that babysitter earlier." I'm like, Mom, did you even read that while dancing in a strip club I denied my black heritage? Two strikes in one story, right there!

The stripper story was the one I was going to leave out…and she gets mad about the babysitter.

To get back to your question - nope, I did not leave anything out of Mixed because of what anyone, including my mother, would think. It would have been a boring ass book if I had. It would have been "Growing Up in a Perfect Household with Perfect Neighbors and How I Saved my Virginity Until Marriage" by Angela "WWJD" Nissel.

So, what is the advice you most normally give writers who ask how to break into TV writing?
Get an agent. Don't go for the super hot-shot agents, find the new one who is actively seeking new clients. Just call one up and be nice to their assistants. Assistants are gate keepers in Hollywood. If the assistant reads your work and thinks it's good, they'll pass it along to their boss. Some people are so rude to assistants (or they call them too much to check up on if the agent read their stuff yet.) Being a TV comedy writer is more than being able to write well. It's such a collaborative process; you have to prove, through your every action, that you have the personality to be locked in a room with up to fourteen other people and not be the ass of the bunch. There are great writers who can't get work because people think they are jerks.

If you're finding it hard to get an agent, write pieces for a local paper. People in L.A. are short on time. Someone is more likely to read a press clipping than a whole spec script. They don't care if it is from the Podunk Press, they'll read it and if it stands out in some way, they'll ask to see more. Plus, people in L.A. tend to think that once you have a byline, someone else has signed off on your writing so you're somewhat legit.

Do you feel like your fans treat you like they know you? I only ask because I noticed how warm and friendly you sounded on your "Fresh Air" interview, even when talking about depression, and how relaxed and fun your writing is on your sites. It's as if you're a professional writer or something.
Ha! Do I have fans? That seems so odd to me. I still can't believe someone made a Wikipedia page for me. When I'm at a book signing and someone tells me they drove for two hours to meet me, it makes me so damn happy - not because they drove that far, but because it lets me know that some people are still reading. Oh, I love freakin' love readers.

I guess, now that I think about it, people do act like they know me, but that's cool, because they actually do. Someone will come up and tell me a story about their cats and I'll start in with a story about my cats and they'll be a bit disappointed because they actually already know the whole story. "Uh, Angela, that was chapter 9…" I forget how much I put in my books sometimes. Or maybe I forget that people might actually read it.

On the Fresh Air interview, you talk about how on "Scrubs" you sometimes weigh in on whether a joke on the show could be potentially offensive to African-Americans. Typically, does this get debated or once the issue of racial insensitivity comes up, is the joke immediately taken out?
Great question. We rarely take jokes out because we fear people might be offended. If it makes the majority of the writers laugh, we figure someone at home might laugh.

There are times I get a bit worried about jokes. For example, when JD imagined that Elliot was Turk. Seeing a white person with a black face is hurtful to a lot of people and I know what it is like to be the person at home thinking, "Damn, did they have to do that? Now I hate this show…" If I get outvoted on a joke, I try to make sure we possibly offend at least one other group in the episode. That's my contribution to racial unity and tolerance!

The main rule is, "Is the joke organic?" JD worrying because he said "slave" around his new black girlfriend is funny because we've all had those moments where we wonder if we've offended someone. JD asking Turk if black people can get black eyes, he not trying to be offensive, he's just being curious.

In the interview, you talk about questions white guys have for their black girlfriends, like why they're not so hot to go on water rides. On the other hand, in "Mixed," you bring up people so often asking you what you 'are.' In your opinion, is there a clear line between cultural curiosity and ignorance?
I love cultural curiosity but you'll never get your curiosity quenched if you ask your questions rudely. I hate the straight "what are you?" question. To me, it's like, "Let me know what your race is so I can know how to talk to you."

If you have a question and you're afraid to ask it - say that! Why don't more people say, "Hey, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to ask this, so I hope I'm not being rude or insensitive, but what's your racial background" If people said that, I'd be inviting them to dinner at my house. Or maybe I am the weird one and "what are you?" is an acceptable thing to ask of another human being. Maybe it's something from my childhood that makes me cringe at that question. Just like some women go off when someone calls them a bitch, but I could care less.

I had a woman come up to me in Rite Air and ask, "Excuse me, is your hair mulatto hair?" She was so nice about it, I could tell she probably didn't know that "mulatto" was offensive to a lot of people, being that it comes from the Spanish word for "mule". I replied that my hair was indeed biracial hair. She asked what I used in it because she was caring for her half-black granddaughter and had no idea how to wash her hair. After I showed her some products, I also told her that mulatto is a word some people might be offended by. She had no idea. I imagine that some folks, including me at one point in time, would have said, "Mulatto? Who you calling a mulatto??!!!' and scared this woman out of ever asking someone another race-related question and her granddaughter's hair would be unwashed to this day.

I guess the key words for this lesson are patience and kindness- on both sides of the questioning.

You taped a segment for Tyra Banks' show, and you've been on Oprah. Is the Harpo green room far superior to Tyra's?
Actually, Tyra's green room came with its own fashion stylist! Tyra has stylists to dress all of her guests! Oprah gave me a mug. I mean, I like the mug, who doesn't like mugs but damn, a stylist?

Do you think TV writing is the kind of thing people can break into by following advice, or is it different for each person?
I think following the right advice can get you in. At the very least, talk to people who know. We have a Guild with some very helpful information on their site.

Do you often have acquaintances or family members pitching you unsolicited ideas for "Scrubs"? Do you ever take them?
My mother, a nurse, always pitches putting Carla in charge. "Y'all treat her like a second class citizen. She's the head nurse, she's got a hard job!" All of her pitches are Carla-related.

People don't pitch to me too much. I guess because everyone in my family and most of my friends in Philly watch American Idol. Instead of pitches, I hear, "I watch Scrubs to see your name on the screen then I turn it to American Idol."

None of my L.A. friends pitch me ideas because they are all in the business and they know better than to give away good ideas for free.

Of all the people your mom could have chosen to tell you was mixed, why David Hasselhoff?
He's eternally tan and when he was on Knight Rider he rocked an afro. He was the closest thing to my complexion on TV! Plus, he loved his car, I bet she figured there had to be some black man up in Michael Knight. (I'm sorry to all black men who don't love their cars that I have just offended.)

The woman who big on your stuff on Ebay who introduced you to the agent who got you your job-what did she buy?
A hat. A fisherman's hat to be exact. All the stylin' hip hop heads were wearing fisherman's hat in 2002. I'm not sure of the connection between hunting for trout and hiphop, but I'm grateful for it.

As an East Coaster, what were some of the biggest differences between Philly and L.A. that it took time to adjust to?
That Mexican and Guatemalan people work in the kitchen of some of the soul food joints here and black people are cool with that. I'd just never seen that in Philly. My grandmother would have had a stroke. "What do they know about cornbread?!!" That, if you're walking on the sidewalk, people will actually pull over their cars to see if you're okay because no one in L.A. walks. That the men are just as pretty as the women. That the whole city is so segregated and so spread out that people of different races don't have to interact at all if they don't want to. In Philly, we at least bumped into each other on the subway.

How does it feel to be the 144th person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
Um, a mix of pride and anger. I should have been the first. I have fans, you know!