Was it something I said to make you turn away, to make you walk out and leave me cold?

I am sitting in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart writing this. Not the new Super Wal-Mart in my town, but the old super Wal-Mart a few towns over. I’ve been avoiding writing for the last few days, partially because I’ve been busy with baby sister in town, but also because my head has been in a really weird place, and I didn’t want to concern people. (After finishing this, I would recommend you not read the rest if you’re feeling a bit down, or even if you’re really happy. It kind of got depressing at the end.)

I’m debating on whether I want to start with the potentially concern-causing thing or with the things that are happier/don’t matter as much/are of no real consequence to my life as a general whole.

I guess we’ll start with the lighter things.

Today’s outfit? Fab. My mom’s friend, Susie, gets rid of clothes fairly frequently, and a lot of times, a lot of them go to me. Today’s combination was my brown heels, literally the most comfortable heels I own. I bought them on a whim a year or two ago when I went shopping in Chapel Hill with Nick and his mom. I didn’t wear them much when I first bought them, because I didn’t own much in the way of brown clothing, but since stocking up on my shades of brown, I’ve been able to wear them more frequently. They are ridiculously comfortable, though. I could walk around in these things all day and not even notice that I was wearing heels. Those were paired with my light blue, wide-legged jeans (thanks to Goody’s, a place I’ve finally found jeans that look good on me. They’re a bit long, because regulars are too short and longs are too long, but if I wear heels with them, they’re fine. A peach tank top, courtesy of Susie and this brown courdoroy jacket, also courtesy of Susie. When I pulled this thing out of the box, I was already thinking of all the outfits I could work around it. I initially had it paired with another Susie shirt, a sleeveless white shirt with crazy brown and yellow pattered. . .flowers, I believe, but I didn’t know if I wanted to go quite that crazy today, so peach it was. I felt really good in this outfit, and that’s what counts, I guess. And since I’ve devoted an entire paragraph to it, I think that should be about the end of it.

Thanksgiving was. . .the usual family affair. Depressing. I drove 6 hours round-trip yesterday, and you’d think that after that, I’d be sick of driving, but here I am, a few towns away, typing. Tonight’s driving jag had a purpose, though. I needed to get away.

Katie was here from Sunday until yesterday, and it was. . .awesome. I never get to see her, and it was really great having her stay for a few days. We went to Asheville Wednesday (since I’d worked all day Saturday, I took Wednesday off) and she came to work with me the other days. I felt guilty, dragging her into work, but she had her laptop, so she was plenty amused. She also liked the little coffee place near work, and went there for breakfast both days she was there. (Incidentally, that place makes a mean pancake. I had no idea they even made pancakes. Trust Katie to find pancakes where there appear to be none.)

It was sad at work today, because I was the only person on the second floor. The newsroom was deserted, it being the day after Thanksgiving and all, except when Chuck came in for an hour or so, and Dennis made a brief appearance. It’s starting to slowly sink in how on my own I am now that Carrie’s gone. It was hidden this week, because Katie was here, but today, I was all alone upstairs and it was just. . .kind of heartbreakingly sad.

I was rescued at 11 or so when this woman, Jan, who I write articles for occasionally, picked me up to take me to this place in the next town over to interview this artist about Christmas ornaments. She also bought me lunch, which was awesome. We went to this seafood place that I’d heard good things about. I. . .have never trusted seafood in the mountains, but I think my mind has been changed after this place. It was delicious. I tried not to think about how far away we are from the actual ocean. My sandwich was wonderful, though, and it was surprisingly inexpensive. Jan paid today, but I mean on the whole, it was surprisingly inexpensive.

After my family Thanksgiving gala, I went into downtown Greensboro and took photos for an hour or so. Remember how I was talking, a month or so ago, about the two great loves of my life, Raleigh and the town in which I currently reside? Greensboro is that hot, young thing that I had an illicit affair with when Raleigh and I were on the outs. I’d forgotten how much I loved taking pictures in downtown Greensboro. I was alone, but it was ok. Once I stop being lazy and get up and get my card reader, I'll put some of those pictures on here.

Downtown Greensboro made me forget how altogether sad I am these days. There’s the occasional bright spot, of course, like my new office, and the times I get to see MK and seeing Katie, but I’m just not feeling altogether whole, and I’m not sure why. But in Greensboro? I was thrilled. I was so happy to be there, photographing the place I lived for 4 years. The last time I photographed downtown, it was in black and white (and then Wal-Mart messed up my film, so it was also in sepia), but this is the first time I’d photographed it in color. It was amazing, really. All the light and the reflections. . .I miss that place sometimes. I actually printed out some of the pictures and I’m going to put them up in my office. I should go into downtown Raleigh next time I’m there, see if I feel the same things there as I do in Greensboro. I’ve lived here for so long that I forget that there places outside of here I can go and take photos. It helped that downtown was basically deserted, it being Thanksgiving, so I could just be alone with the city. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt what it’s like, being alone with a place you love, but it got me through the rest of that day, and I wasn’t sad on the way home, as I expected to be.

So here’s a question for you. I got the idea for a future issue of my mag to do a feature on scrapbooking. It’s the holidays, and people take a lot of photos, and I happen to know that there are several places that do classes and sell supplies. . .things like that. The problem I have is that the person that I’ve mentioned before that hates me? The one person that would probably have me “taken care of” if she could? That’s what she does. She’s actually quite good. . .I’ve seen her Web site and the stuff she does, and it’s good. Under other circumstances, I’d call her first to interview her about this stuff. My dilemma is this — I can’t snub her. For one, because, as I mentioned, she’s good. Also, because that would probably make the situation worse than it already is. On the other hand, I absolutely, staunchly refuse to ask her to come to my office so I can talk to her. I won’t do it. I know that business is business and personal issues are personal, but I think if you knew the depth of her hatred for me, you’d agree that her being in my office is not something that needs to happen. So I don’t know what to do from here. It won’t be for a couple weeks until I need this centerspread, but I need to figure out what to do now. I could give the assignment to one of my freelancers, but I’d really rather write it myself, for one, because it’s a relatively interesting subject matter, and also, the more I write, the less I have to pay the freelancers. And cheap is good. So I’m at a loss here. It may end up that I just don’t do the feature, since I don’t know how to go about this situation, but that seems kind of a shame.

At Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, my aunt got onto the subject of my love life (or lack thereof.) “Sarah,” she says, “what’s happening in the old love life these days?” I muttered something about not having time, there not really being anyone nearby, etc. She says, “Ah ha! There must be a new guy if she’s not willing to talk.” “No,” I say, “there is most definitively not a new guy.” “Then you must be involved with an old guy,” she says. “What happened to the one from last year?” I know who she’s talking about, but I say, “I wasn’t seeing anyone at this time last year,” True. It was Easter she was thinking of, but I wasn’t about to correct her. She turns to Katie, “How about it, Katie?” she says, “I’m certain you know everything.” Katie, who, in fact, knows nothing more than what she observes, gives a half-smile and shakes her head, saying nothing. (I knew there was a reason I love her.) My aunt finally gives up, but that got me to thinking, “My God. I have never brought anyone home for the holidays.” My step-cousin (or whatever) has brought his parade of girlfriends to the dinners, but I’ve never had anyone. And that makes me. . .incredibly sad. But I decide not to dwell on it.

I continued thinking about this today. I was sitting in my office, alone, and thinking that, really and truly, if I were to keel over at home, it would be a while before anyone noticed. Suppose I kicked it during lunch on a Friday. If I didn’t come back to work, they’d just assume I’d gone home for the day. I don’t normally see people on Saturday, and if it wasn’t my Sunday to work, it would be Monday before anyone even thought anything weird was going on. Maybe someone would notice when I didn’t show up for the 8:30 meeting that starts at 9:15, but they’d try to call me and go on with the meeting. Maybe around lunch, someone would get vaguely concerned.

This particular timeline I’m gleaning from what happened when McHotpants didn’t show up for a staff meeting. We just had the meeting, and then at around 11:30 or 12, Vi sent me out to his house, since he wasn’t answering his phone. I ended up getting a hold of him on the way to his house (he slept through his alarm and, apparently, the 5,000 phone calls that morning) and nothing was wrong, but still. It was noon before we knew for sure what was going on. If I keeled over at noon on Friday, and it was noon Monday before anyone noticed anything was amiss. . .that’s like 3 days. It kind of puts things into perspective, and shows you where you stand in life. I need a roommate. Or a boyfriend.

As I was sitting my office, the lights out, after Karen had gotten offline and before I started talking to Nick, I was just thinking about my own mortality. A little morbid, sure, but I was alone in a cold, dark office. What else do you think about? I went through the whole scenario, the noon Friday to noon Monday scenario, and then I climbed up onto the roof.

That might sound weird, but actually, the last time I had a minor panic attack about something completely unrelated, I went up to the roof and it gave me clarity. Literally, I stood there for a while, and suddenly, everything was put into perspective for me, and I felt better.

It was oddly quiet today for being Black Friday, and I just stood there for a little while, looking down onto Main Street. I was far enough away from the edge that I wasn’t in any danger of falling off, but I found myself thinking, “What if?” That’s it. What if? What would happen? If I were to fall off that roof, what would happen? I’m not married, I don’t have any kids. . .what would happen to the things I owned? What would my obituary say? Having worked in the obituaries for over a year, I’ve seen a lot of variety in what those things say. But what would mine say? No one there knows me, really knows me, so a lot of the things that people say in their loved ones’ obituaries, “He loved hunting, fishing, crossword puzzles, church and his grandchildren,” wouldn’t be relevant. What would the people I spend the most time with really be able to say about me? “She was a decent writer, took decent photographs, loved Diet Coke and talked about her sister a lot”? I mean, Carrie’s family, she knows me, and I guess they call the parents in situations like that, but that had me really concerned. That no one would know what to put in my obituary. That I would just be another, “Oh, wow, 24. She died awfully young.”

And I’ve always wondered how people who don’t live where you died would find out. I have friends in South Carolina, Raleigh, Greensboro, Asheville, Chapel Hill, Fayetteville, Pennsylvania, Manchester (at the moment). How do they know? Do those left behind think to call these people? How would people know? Would they just start to wonder when you don’t answer your phone for a while? Are you supposed to leave a list of people you want notified? How does it WORK?

I think I’m too young to be thinking about things like this, and I know it sounds really, awfully morbid, but I don’t want people to worry about me. I’m not going to jump off the roof. I promise. These are just the things I think about when I’m alone. And I’m alone a lot. I think a lot of people think about stuff like this. . .it’s just that not many people talk about it. And I’m talking about it because I don’t want it just bouncing around in my head.

Sorry, y’all. I just have a lot on my mind these days. And I’m just unhappy. The holidays do that to me, especially over the last two years. The aunt I was closest to died Christmas Eve day, you know. My senior year of college. That was a rough year. My uncle, her brother, my father’s brother, had died three months prior. And the last time I talked to her, I was telling her that no, I couldn’t take her and my grandmother Christmas shopping. I really, really didn’t want to, and somehow, something came up so I honestly couldn’t. But that was the last time I talked to her. When I told her no, I couldn’t help them out. I’d done it the weekend before and I was going to be damned if I was going to do it again.

And that’s the last time I’ll ever talk to her. I was being a selfish bitch in the last conversation I had with her. The next time I saw her was at the wake.

I’m going to stop here. I’m sorry this was so depressing.

If I go crazy, then will you still call me Superman? If I'm alive and well, will you be there a-holding my hand?

So long since my last post (like a week). So much to tell (like a lot). I'm probably going to forget something or leave something out, but I'll do my very best.

First of all, I started my new job yesterday. I, admittedly, got off to a rocky start, but it had nothing to do with the job I'm going to be doing, but the job that I was doing before. I don't feel like going into the inane details, but suffice it to say that we need better management.

I LOVE having an office. I've only been in there for a day, but it's. . .kind of amazing. I like having a place to pace around (as I do when I'm thinking), I like having a whiteboard where I can make notes, I love my big desk and I love having a door I can close. I haven't closed it yet, but I could if I wanted to. I also took the microwave from my old desk, since it had been Allison that brought that in and Allison is no longer there. Come Sunday, I'll have a fridge in there as well (random fact about me. Whenever I write out "fridge," it's because I truly have no idea how to spell the entire, spelled-out word, and I don't want to look dumb or take the effort to figure it out) because the one I had in college is at my grandparents' house, and I will, in fact, be in Greensboro Sunday for my mom's side of the family's Thanksgiving soiree. (I can spell things like soiree properly, but I can't spell the entirety of fridge.)

I have written my first Last Word. The Last Word is a column at the end of the publication that is normally humor-based or whatever. Carrie wrote her last Last Word last week with her Thanksgiving issue of the mag (in keeping with my "anonymity," I'm just going to refer to it as the mag. I'm aware it's not a real magazine, but I think I'm allowed.) which, in my opinion, was one of her best issues to date. It's right up there with Folkmoot and last year's gift guide.

Anyway, I'm going to put the Last Word here, to give you a preview, since it won't actually come out until Tuesday. Karen's already seen it, but the rest of you can be surprised:

I was having a conversation with some of my colleagues the other day and we started talking about what you don’t know about people. One reporter, Kim, said that when you fill out a survey on one of those social networking sites, like Facebook or MySpace, one question typically asked is, “What’s one thing people don’t know about you?” Kim said this was a dumb question, because, “There’s probably a reason you haven’t told people some things.”
I thought about that for a second and said, “Well, things people don’t know about you aren’t necessarily secrets. They’re just things you don’t think to mention.” The example I gave was that I don’t really like Oreos without peanut butter on them. It’s not something I’m ashamed of; it’s just something that doesn’t come up often. Incidentally, a couple weeks ago, one of my favorite people, not actually knowing my preference, presented me with an Oreo that had peanut butter cream in the middle instead of regular cream. The question here is, how had I gone this long without knowing such a thing existed?
Anyway, I decided that, as the new mag editor, I would share with all of you, the readers, some things you probably don’t know about me. It’s a bonding experience. We’re going to be, in one form or another, in each other’s lives at least once a week, pretty much indefinitely. After this, if you see me walking down Main Street, you can turn to whomever you’re with and say, “Hey, did you know she [enter name of fact here]?” If they read the mag (and hopefully, they do), they’ll tell you they already knew. If they don’t, you will have given them a completely useless nugget of knowledge they will most likely remember, even though they’re not sure why. Some of these, those closest to me would know, but I feel, again, that we’re bonding here, so I’ll share them with you as well.
Let’s begin.
There are two movies that will cause me to tear up every time I see them: Armageddon and Sesame Street’s “Follow That Bird.” I think Armageddon is understandable. It’s at that one part where Bruce Willis and his excess of testosterone are about to save the day and he’s saying goodbye to Liv Tyler? I tear up every time. It just happens. Follow That Bird, on the other hand, is an interesting story. Apparently, when I was 2 or so, I would watch the movie over and over, paying most attention to the part of the movie where Big Bird, who has been kidnapped and painted blue, is forced to sing this incredibly sad song about why he’s so blue (figuratively). My mom worried about masochistic tendencies in her daughter because I seemed to watch it just so I could watch that part and cry. Cut to 17 years later. I’m 19 and home after my first year of college. I’d recently discovered Netflix and had rented Follow That Bird, just for kicks, and to laugh at 2-year-old Sarah and how overly sensitive she was. Imagine my horror when, at that part of the film, I felt my eyes well up. I definitely cried through the entire song. Thinking it was a fluke, I went to the part of the DVD that just showed the songs and watched it again. I swear it was some kind of Pavlovian thing, because the tears started up. I have, in fact, not watched it since.
The sound that I almost literally cannot stand to be around is the sound of packing tape or duct tape being either ripped off the roll or off a box. Before I moved here, I worked for Pepsi in Raleigh. I sat in a cubicle in the middle of the room and the IT shared a cube wall with me. I never knew this guy’s name, but apparently a big part of his job was to put packing tape onto or rip packing tape off of boxes. He would begin at approximately 11:30 a.m. and rip tape until 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon. The sound almost drove me out of my mind. I had to start bringing in my iPod and put it up to an ear-shattering volume to cover the sound that made me want to jump out of my skin. Have you ever gotten so intensely agitated about something that it made you feel itchy? That was me at Pepsi. More recently, it was when my work friend Aron was making his Halloween costume that he learned about my tape aversion. His costume this year was “Duct Tape Man,” which, obviously, required the use of duct tape. Lots and lots of duct tape. After about half an hour into the construction of the costume, I said to Aron in what I hoped was a conversational tone of voice, “Did you know that the sound of duct tape being ripped off the roll is one thing that kind of makes me a little crazy?” Apparently, the tone wasn’t as conversational as I might have hoped, because Aron looked at me with something resembling fear on his face. Since Halloween was the following evening, he had to finish the costume, so I ignored it the best I could. Incidentally, we are still friends and I managed to not tear out all my hair.
I really, really wish I could speak French fluently. This might not seem like such a weird thing. There are plenty of people who wish they could speak a foreign language. I guess the weird part about it is that I‘m unable to do it, seeing as to how I took three years of French in high school and, collectively, four semesters of French in college. The four semesters in college were a requirement, although to this day I’m not certain why you need two years of a foreign language to get a degree in English. But despite five years of French classes and three half-semesters where I dropped midway through because I realized at the rate I was going, I would kill my GPA if I continued, I still have the most rudimentary grasp of conversational French. I can read it sometimes and I have a few choice phrases I can understand and speak, but in general, it’s an epic failure. As a result, I sound like someone really pretentious when I randomly drop the French words I do know into conversation (i.e. “Would tu aimer to go to déjeuner at Nick and Nate’s avec moi?”) I would, however, love to be able to bust out entire, correct, sentences in French. It’s a dream of mine, really. But despite my best efforts and my GPA, ultimately, being knocked down to just below 3.0, I can’t do it and so, for now, people will have to deal with hearing things like, “J’adore what you’ve done with your cheveux.”
So there you go. Three things about me that you most likely didn’t know, and might not have even cared to know. But now that I’ve shared, I’d like to ask you to share, too. I want to know what you want to read in the mag. I’d love to hear your ideas for things you’d like to see more of, things you’d like to see less of and what I can do to make your reading experience as enjoyable as it could possibly be. You can e-mail me at [my work e-mail] with anything you’d like to say. You can even come by my office to chat. If you do this, though, I’d like to ask that you bring Oreos. Also, peanut butter.

So there it is. My first offering as BigShot Editor. I'm rather proud of it. I miss writing columns. I got to do it weekly in college.

What else? I know there's more.

Oh! I've discovered a clothing brand that J'adore. At Target, they have this brand called Converse One Star. Since it's the Converse brand, it's ridiculously expensive. However, if you wait for things to go on sale and clearance, it's palpable. The only thing is, their sizes are kind of weird. I got a white shirt there a few weeks ago that was a medium, the long-sleeved polo I've got on today is a large, and a tank top I bought there is a small. So. . .I'm not sure about that. I think they tend to run big, because the shirt I've got on today could probably stand to be a size smaller. But even though I don't like everything in the collection, the basis of it is exactly my casual style. (My casual style and my "professional" style are kind of two different things.)

You know those weird, random things that you remember that you really have to reason to remember ever? Rod Stewart's "Forever Young" just came on my Pandora radio, and I was reminded of a time in. . .it was either 8th or 9th grade, because I was in Latin class and those were the only two years I took Latin (due to having been forced by the school, not due to any kind of burning desire to learn dead languages), but we were, for some reason, playing charades, and my teacher, Mr. Walker (who also taught English one year, I believe), was up and was trying to act out a song title, and couldn't het anyone to guess it and finally began frntically pointing at this one girl, Stephanie Young, and as soon as he pointed to her, I KNEW what he was trying to get at but, for whatever reason, decided not to say anything. No one ever figured it out. And if I would have been like, "I figured it out," either people wouldn't have believed me, or they would have wondered why, if I knew it, I didn't say anything. That, in fact, is an excellent question. I really don't know.

I'm wicked excited that Katie is coming to stay with me tomorrow. It took us forEVER to convince our mother to let her come up, but we did prevail. It didn't help when my town was all over the news because of a flasher who decided to flash people ON MY STREET. Like, literally. On my street. I told my mother that he was only flashing men (true), but she still was hesitant. I'm saying, it's ok for me to live near Flashy McJunkerstein, but not Katie? I don't know. (Also, I think it's mildly funny that my spellcheck didn't pick up "McJunkerstein.") So when I go to Greensboro tomorrow for "Thanksgiving," I'll bring her back with me, and she'll stay here until Thursday, when we go BACK to Greensboro for Actual!Thanksgiving, and I'll drop her off with my father.

Another reason my mother gave for her trepidation for letting Katie come up was that Katie, "Isn't used to living the same lifestyle I do." . . .Really? I can tell you with absolute certainty that Katie goes out more often than I do. If I come home past 8 or 9, it's either because I'm at Carrie's, I'm still at work, or I'm out randomly driving around. I kind of wish I were living the life my mother seems to think I am.

Nick'll be back in. . .29 days. One more month. His family is going to see him this week and they're spending Thanksgiving in Paris. My question is, why am I not spending Thanksgiving in Paris? I think that's a valid question. It would make sense, really. As in, "I am THANKFUL that I'm in Paris!" Whatever. I'm sure he's aware that he needs to being me presents. If any of you are wondering, and I know you are, I have, in fact, picked the outfit that I'm going to wear when I see Nick again. I have to look fabulous, obviously, and I have just the thing.

And finally, ANTM. My poor Analeigh made it to the Top 3 and then lost out in being in the Top 2 by being beaten by weird, manly McKey and always-looks-like-she's-going-to-cry Samantha. Ultimately, as I predicted, McKey won. Homegirl is. . .not cute. Not pretty. She looks like a mannish duck. Maybe that's what the modeling industry is into these days, but if I were a designer, I wouldn't want my dresses worn by a man. But at least the cycle is over. Hopefully, I won't get sucked into the next cycle. My nerves can't take it.

Off to work and errands.