ON THE BREADLINE: RACHEL SUGAR

You don’t need to have held down a job for years to feel the sting of unemployment. Sugar, of Brooklyn, graduated from college last year and promptly landed a position as an editorial assistant at an online magazine—only to get laid off in January.

How do you cope with getting up every morning? What motivates you?

I try to have delicious breakfast foods on hand—I’m into grapefruit. I make elaborate lists and schedules and morning appointments whenever possible. Sometimes it works.

Likewise, how do you cope with getting to sleep at night, or getting any sleep, period?

I’m lucky, I suppose: extreme stress makes me sleepy. Staying asleep is the problem. For that, there’s Benadryl. Or Wal-dryl, rather—can’t be buying brand-name these days.

Give an example of the sort of changes or cutbacks you’ve had to make in the way you live your life.

Mostly, I feel guilty. I eat lots of pasta. Lentils. Eggs. I read magazines at the bookstore, and I wear a lot of past-their-prime clothes that don’t really fit. And I’ve definitely stopped protesting when people offer to pay for things.

I angst over the price of take-out coffee, but I still buy it.

Share with us some of your recession gallows humor.

I’ve found some pretty hilarious job postings in my panicked Craigslist searches—I pass them along. There was one to be a “dog fluffer” (seemingly a cosmetic, rather than pornographic, position, requiring two years of grooming experience). One read: “New York based artist seeks 3 painters to assist in the production of paintings. Must be interested in the edge: sex, violence and dangerous ideas.” Then a “playwright” wanted a “partner” to help him develop his experimental new “playwrighting method” by accompanying him home for Thanksgiving and pretending to be his girlfriend.

I think about applying, but my sense of absurdity is stronger than my sense of adventure.

What, if anything, gives you hope that the future holds better things?

A friend of mine pointed out that, as early 20-somethings, we have the advantage of not having lost much, since we came into the recession with virtually nothing to lose.

Sometimes I can muster the blind faith to believe that things will get better because they have to get better. In the meantime, I fantasize about grad school—it seems like a kind of escape route.