Why does it always rain on me? Even when the sun is shining, I can't avoid the lightning.

Raleigh! Oh my God, how I've missed this place. I finally left home at like 11:30 after running a few errands which included but were not limited to depositing a check, paying my electric bill and going to the library.

At the library, I picked up some books on tape, because I've found that the time passes so much more quickly on the road when I'm listening to books on tape, rather than listening to music. I don't know. There are days when I just want to drive around, blasting music and singing along, and then there are long, long, 4 1/2 hour trips that just warrant a book on tape. I got through John Grisham's "The Firm" and started on a book by that guy who did that documentary called "Supersize me." "The Firm" was ok. Nothing to write home about, but not a waste of three hours, either. I ended that one just as I got to Greensboro, and I put in the other one after I left the used bookstore at which I stopped in Greensboro, where I bought a Sweet Valley High book (for 50 cents!!), a book by an author that I like, and season 1 of 30 Rock on DVD because I love (LOVE!!) Tina Fey.

So, I finished this book that I started a few months ago and finally picked up again. "We Need To Talk About Kevin" is a book that Nick had highly recommended and that I had bought. . .I want to say over the summer. Maybe in July? Yeah, because it was last time I was in the Piedmont. I started it and didn't like it at all. It was slow and draggy and fairly boring. However, I picked it up again last week and couldn't put it down. It really picked up after a while and I got completely sucked into it. I spent the better part of quite a few evenings this week reading it, and when I finally got to the end, I was disappointed it was over. It was one of those books that. . .it kind of feels like it grabs you by the soul. You feel it. I felt every emotion that the woman narrating was feeling, and I was emotionally exhausted by the time the book ended. There was one moment (I won't say what happened, in case anyone wants to read it), but I actually said, "Oh no!" and then I re-read the passage, hoping that I'd read it wrong the first time.

I would highly recommend it. Nick, I take back saying it was really boring. It gets so much better.

I've been reading a lot of things recently that I've felt. I read the autobiography of one of the women that was one of the founding members of the Make-A-Wish foundation. I cried while reading that book. I didn't like the woman's writing so much, but when she was talking about her son that died of cancer? It was so, so sad. And it made me more anxious to work for them as a volunteer. The regional director of the WNC Make-A-Wish branch is going to bring me papers so I can sign up next weekend. Next weekend is the motorcycle rally for Make-A-Wish, and the night before, there's going to be a meet and greet for people involved, where they'll meet Rikki, because she's the ride ambassador, and Carolyn (the director) invited me to come. Not as a reporter, but just to go. I'll be reporting on the rally that Saturday, and I'm pretty excited about it. I'm jumping into this Make-A-Wish stuff headfirst, because while I knew what Make-A-Wish was, I'd never met anyone involved with them or who had benefited from them, but now that I have, I realize that it's a really, really great organization.

The new guy at work, NewJeff, is, as it turns out, a welcome addition to the office. He's very cool, and his kid is an absolute doll. She's the same age as Dennis' kid, and it seems very, very odd that I've found two four-year-old kids that I don't disdain. Vera (NewJeff's kid) is ridiculously polite and she's just adorable.

I feel like I might not hate kids as much as I used to. Maybe it's just that I've run into a couple that aren't tragic and are relatively well-behaved, so I'm forgetting why exactly it is I don't like kids.

I think I'm going to end up that person that, one day, someone's going to say, "I love you," and I'm going to say, "Thank you." I find that when someone says something complimentary to me that normally would illicit some kind of response, I end up saying "thank you." And that, one of these days, is going to end up awkward.

I meant to take pictures of Dennis' desk to put them up here. I have a little ritual of putting balloons and streamers in people's desks and offices for their birthdays, and his birthday is Sunday, so I did the balloon thing Thursday before I left. It was pretty cool, because, thanks to my OCD, it was very symmetrical. Vi's birthday is next, so I'll have to figure out a color scheme for her. When it was Chuck's birthday, I did black balloons and streamers, because he turned 50. For Carrie's birthday, I did green and white, because I remembered that green was either her favorite or one of her favorite colors, and also because I felt that the white offset the green nicely. For Dennis, it was red and black. Black because it's going to be his 40th, and red because. . .well, a couple of reasons. I've never actually asked him which high school football team he prefers, but between the one with red and black for their colors and the one with gold and black for their colors, he seems to prefer the red and black one. Plus, he often wears red. So it seemed like a safe color combination.

I actually asked him, a month or so ago, what his favorite color was, for the purpose of picking balloons, but he never told me. I think it was a good guess, though. Carrie told me his wife brought in a lot of balloons, too, so that would have been an interesting thing to see. Balloonapalooza.

Also, I'll be really happy when this election is over, because I am sick. to. death. of these political commercials. I think I'm going to vote for myself. Truth be told, as far as experience goes, McCain and Biden need to get together. Because we'd have a president with experience, and then when he (inevitably) keels over, we'd still have someone with experience, and we could maybe get everything back on track.

Sarah Palin's "oh-gee-dontcha-know" hometown girl schtick is already getting old. I don't want to get too political right here right now, but she needs to get it together if McCain wins this thing. Because when he (inevitably) keels over, it's a scary, scary thought that someone who thinks that foreign policy has anything to do with being able to see Russia from her home state could potentially be in charge of everything.

I've got my things, I'm good to go. You met me at the terminal. Just one more plane ride and it's done.

So I made it to South Carolina. I didn't initially think that it was going to be able to come, because I'm having some ridiculous car problems with my ridiculous car. It's going to cost me no less than at least 200 bucks to fix. I hate how expensive cars are. Especially cars more than 10 years old.

I decided to go by the library on the way out and pick up some audio books. Now that I've experienced traveling with audio books, I don't think I'll ever go a long distance without them. It kept me awake and I feel like something was accomplished (i.e., I read a book).

One of the audiobooks I picked up was He's Just Not That Into You. Now, I had checked this out of the library a while back and had read the first page or so and hated it. I don't remember specifically why I hated it so much, but I think it had something to do with the relationship situation I was in at the time and how I hated how what it was saying to me was contrary to everything I was doing at the moment in my personal life.

So I listened to the entire book for the first part of my trip and. . .I was kind of captivated. Granted, some of it wasn't altogether. . .nice. But the guy didn't say anything that wasn't entirely true. It was stuff like, don't date married men because every woman deserves to have a guy's full attention, don't overlook the fact that he says he'll call you at a specific time and then doesn't, because that just shows that he's always going to be more concerned with his time than with yours, don't waste your time with guys who give excuses as to why they can't spend more time with you. The guy was saying something like, if he really likes you, he'll find ways to call you/be with you/be the only guy in your life, etc.

I hate, hate HATE to say that a lot of the things he said never to get involved with, I've been involved with. Recently. And he said something about not settling. Which I do. Because, really and truly? Guys don't like me. No, that's not true. Guys love me. They think I'm fun and funny and they like hanging out with me. . .but they'll cancel plans to hang out with me in order to see some girl they're actually interested in. In, you know, the friend girl. So when I find a guy who's interested, I tend to be like Yes! Finally!! And I'll overlook all the crap that no normal person would overlook ever.

But, and I'm not even exaggerating, this book has changed my perception of a lot of things. I'm hoping that the next time some guy's interested, all this doesn't go out the window, but it kind of put it all in perspective.

Next: weddings and babies.

OK. Babies can be cute. Not when they're first born, but by the time they get to the three, four, five month old stage, they're cute to look at, I guess, and maybe play with. But once they start screaming/needing diaper changes/taking over every aspect of your LIFE, they're not so cute anymore.

Weddings. Occasionally, parts of them are fun. Getting all done up and eating cake are two things that I happen to enjoy.

My question, though, is why is it that every single person I spend any amount of time with is fixated on either or both?

I know that my job, as a girlfriend, is to coo over babies and to be excited about weddings but honestly? I'm just not that into them. Especially the idea of a permanent child in my life. And that's my prerogative, you know? I'm allowed to not like kids that much right now and to not want to jump into a wedding dress next week. It seems to me that a lot of people today are totally against the thought that maybe there's someone out there that doesn't

Maybe one of these days I'll change my mind. Maybe today, my friend and I will go visit Savannah and I'll meet the Georgie Peach of my dreams, and we'll have a whirlwind courtship and be married by the fall.

Maybe after GP and I get married in October, I'll be knocked up by spring and popping out babies by my first anniversary.

But I seriously doubt it.

I'm sure that this is going to get me ex-communicated from Girldom, but I just wish, sometimes, people would take into consideration that they're talking to someone who is single, will probably be single for a while, and who is surrounded by not-single people making all these plans that, honestly? I think most of us are too young for. And much as I'm fine with being on my own (hell, I'm finding out more and more recently that it lets me do. . .pretty much whatever I want without having to take anyone else's perspective into consideration. I could move to Montana if I wanted to.) I also don't like being reminded of it on a continual basis.

It's like. . .I'm diabetic, right? I'm OK with that. I've accepted that. But I don't want to sit around and talk about it. It's an aspect of my life that's there, it's not going to change any time soon, but I don't really want to discuss it.

I guess my point is, I love my friends, but I wish that there were other things they were all so interested in talking about right now. Because I can't connect. When it comes to weddings and wanting children, I don't understand the conversation, because I'm not planning a wedding and I'm not looking to spend nine months carrying something around that, after those nine months, I have to take care of fully for a few years and then deal with for the rest of my life.

Am I horrible? I feel like maybe I am, but then again, it's how I feel about the situation.

I feel like this has been a negative entry. Let's throw in some positive.

Oh my God, I ate at Applebees last night and we passed a Target. I got more excited than I should have. My town really, really needs to step it up a couple notches. It was amazing.

And we really are going to Savannah today, and I'm pretty excited about that. I didn't realize how close to Georgia this place is. I'm 8 miles outside of Georgia.

Next is on MTV right now, and if you've never seen it, you need to. It's an awful show, but you'll start watching it during a marathon and, three hours later, finally peel yourself away.

What is my life going to be? Four years of college (and plenty of knowledge) have earned me this useless degree.

I'd like to know something.

How is it that I have gone almost 24 years without having ever experienced the joy of owning one of those things that straps your iPod to your arm when you go running? Honestly, it's changed my life. And I'm only exaggerating slightly.

I almost didn't go on my "run" this evening because I couldn't find my iPod headphones. That might sound like a really lame excuse to not exercise, but really? I'd get too bored to continue if I were trying to "run" sans music.

I'm a fan of the route I took this time. I decided to go a different way and check out some of the little side streets around where I live. I ran across (no pun intended. . .) the CUTEST little house. I aspire to live in that house, if I can ever find it again. I then found myself on the street that was the site of some kind of big altercation resulting in stabbings and shootings the other night, and I didn't realize exactly how close it was to my house. I heard the sirens and everything the other night, but I didn't realize it was right there.

I also have some people I know moving onto that street or somewhere thereabouts, and I'm not. . .altogether thrilled about that. So I hightailed it down that street and went home. I found that when I got home, I wanted to keep going, so I went back up and down the street. I decided that I could justify walking rather than running if I went up steep hills while I was going. I don't get out of breath, but my stomach starts to hurt, and I know you have to push yourself a little beyond what you're comfortable with if you want to improve or be able to have more endurance or whatever, but I'd rather not pass out in the middle of Main Street.

I made an observation today: it was a general observation and really only vaguely had anything to do with anything. It was brought on by a combination of things, one being a discussion about "illicit affairs" and the results thereof and the other being one of the women in the office calling the woman her husband cheated on her with and then subsequently married a whore, and pointing her out in pictures to me. Plus, I just finished reading The Other Boleyn Girl (a fabulous book I'd highly recommend to anyone who had the time to read a book just over 600 pages) which is all about sham marriages and infidelity and all that, told from the point of view of the Other Woman.

I guess this isn't so much an observation as a question. Why is it that women (and maybe men do it too, I don't know) blame the Other Woman almost solely in situations of infidelity? I mean, a wife can walk around saying, "Oh, I can never trust you again, I can't believe you'd do that, etc," but in my observations, it's always the Other Woman's fault. Why is that? I'm pretty sure it takes two to tango (so to speak) and, unless the Other Woman is married herself, shouldn't most of the blame be placed, at least in the eyes of the other spouse, on their lawfully wedded?

Obviously, I've never been married (as multiple people have been pointing out to me in the last month or so) but I just don't understand the rationale. For all the spouse knows, the Other Woman was seduced by the husband. Or maybe it was a mutual thing.

I mean, it's entirely possible the Other Woman was just a big old slut puppy homewrecker trying to break up a happy home, but surely, that can't be the case all the time.

Anyway, that's my question. I don't expect it to be answered (I have a feeling no one really knows the answer) but I just wondered.

In other news, going back to the Capital seriously made me question whether I wanted to live here for much longer. I thought about looking for a job back home, packing up and moving before the end of the year.

But I don't know that I could actually do that. I'm tied up in this place in a most peculiarly emotional sort of way, and I think if I left, I'd want to come back. I think it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't sort of situation. I miss the big city. I really, really do. But everything's nice around here (save the occasional stabbing/shooting). The weather's nice, it's quaint, it's got great views.

I don't know. I'm afraid that I might settle here, and then I might become one of those people that are so set in their ways, they drive the local newspapers crazy when they write in complaints and comments.

I feel like this whole post has been kind of off-topic and here and there. . .but that's kind of how I'm feeling right now.

I'm also feeling incredibly hot. I feel like my body temperature is about 10 degrees higher than any normal person's should be. I'm always hot.