Well, it’s two in the a.m. on a Monday morning. Not only am I supposed to start a new sh*t job at MoMA today, but I have a final exam for a proofreading class this same evening. Why the hell am I not sleeping? Because my old buddy Insomnia has decided to pay me a visit. As he playfully pokes fun at my deepest insecurities, I wish to high heaven he were flesh and blood, that I might take a long, sharp steak knife and sever his head from his shoulders with a wound ear-to-ear. But Insomnia is a spectre, and worse, horribly talkative. As a guest in my room tonight, he is privileged to speak. As a thing of shadow and the stillness of the twilight hour, I am powerless to make him shut-up.

But writing about it helps, kind of.

I can’t remember what I was dreaming, for the brief hour-and-a-half before Insom shook me violently awake. All I know is, after snapping awake, slightly damp from perspiration, I had this overwhelming urge to pick a hardcover book off the floor and smash my head with it, over and over. I didn’t, of course. But I felt an overpowering desire to. What angry spirits infected my slumber, and had brought me to such an agitated state? Are they the same grim spectres that keep me awake now? Insomnia imbibes some warm tea with me, but keeps such revelations to himself.

What have Insom and I been discussing between us? There is the new job, which should not improve my marketability beyond, “Can certainly wear a buttoned shirt.” Is stagnation the final destination of all life, or simply that of the English major? Looking back to a year ago, when I was finishing up at the Social Register, is this where I saw myself 12 months hence? Still living the life of the job-hopper, still having doors of long-term employment slammed in my face?

A year ago, I had a versatile excuse to fall back on: The economy is bad, and jobs are hard to come by. Is it still as bad today? What about all those reports I keep hearing, the “positive economic indicators?” Large multi-colored arrows on the tube that have pointed upwards as of late. Shouldn’t jobs be more plentiful now, especially to a college grad from a school like N.Y.U.?

See, it was easy to settle for data entry and cr*p jobs when the country was in recession. When twenty-year vets of companies were being laid off, of course it meant finding meaningful, or even long-term work, would be extremely tough. But here’s my big concern: What if, now that the economy is growing again, I still can’t find a decent job—Decent meaning it lasts longer than three months, with the remote possibility of benefits? Not because the economy is out of shape, but simply because no one wants to hire an English major from the class of 2002. I’m not running around yelling that the sky is falling. I’ve had many more interviews for jobs and internships during the last month, but something’s always been missing from my resume, something that keeps me from being hired. Just because the economy is expanding again, it doesn’t mean Company A is on the lookout only for someone who “pays attention to details.” They want their potential employee to be both meticulous, as well as veterans with certain MS applications. Why? Because they laid off some of their MS people, as well as the trainers. So why hire three new people if they can fill all three needs with one applicant?

So perhaps it is nothing short of my destiny to work three-month temp jobs the rest of my life, never moving out of my grandparents’ house. Or, I can take some classes, work my way up to an expert-level MS Office user. Then maybe everything will change again. I had an uncle who told me all I needed to do was get a college degree. “Just prove that you can learn,” he said. “Companies will train you with all the rest.” He must be the only HR manager in the country who follows that practice, because no one has taken that approach with me. My dad, meanwhile, eschewed a different philosophy. “Phil, you cowardly girl,” he would say to me. “Make sure you take lots of business and computer classes in college.” Well, I’ve taken some computer courses, but it’s the job experience I’m missing. And as the old Catch-22 goes, I can’t get job experience unless I get a job, and I can’t get a job unless…

Maybe I should look into a new line of work, like drug dealing. I was watching De Palma’s “Scarface” the other day—I hadn’t seen it in so long and forgot so much about it—and I must say, dealing illegal narcotics certainly seems like a lucrative career choice. I haven’t seen the last third of the film yet, but so far, I can see no cons to being a smack dealer. Or maybe I should relocate somewhere else. Like across the void. Bullet to the head, slashed wrists, leap off a bridge or a library atrium (Not N.Y.U. of course.) Insomnia, your ideas show great vision, but I don’t think they would really solve my problems. And of course, my death would make my parents cry. Probably. Maybe if my corpse is sprinked with freshly-chopped onions, which it should be.