Holy cow am I happy to be back at work. After launching the July/Sept issue, I embarked on an 11-day, vacay/furlough combo that left me so excited to come back you’d think they were handing out diamond rings at the door.

You see, I love my job. While most people begrudgingly drag themselves to work every morning, you’re likely to find me bum rushing the Observer elevators with bright-eyed, bushy-tailed enthusiasm. It’s kind of sickening, really. And it only compounds after an extended hiatus.

So, how did I survive with no email, no deadlines and no direct contact with my family of co-workers for nearly two weeks? I’m not going to lie. It was downright painful at times. But a trip to Pa., a birthday party and a visit from one particular cross-country friend saw me through. Here’s what went down:

“Woohoo! Philadelphia!”

That was a text I sent to a friend upon landing in The Homeland on July 2. It probably should have read “Woohoo! West Chester!” – which still isn’t even really where I’m from – but until the great state of Pa. decides to consolidate the epic amount of cities, towns, boroughs, districts, villages, counties and townships of which it is comprised, I am going to continue pretending I’m from Philly.

My aunt picked me up curbside, and so began a weekend of lying by the pool, hot-tubbing and finding new ways to corrupt my teenage cousin. We went to the local brewery and sampled what was on draught. We celebrated the graduation of a family friend. We threw clams and steaks on the grill, saw fireworks and watched movies. I drank non-alcoholic daiquiris with my cousins and navigated the high, chlorinated seas in an inflatable boat.

I had a fantastic time, but by day four, the warm, relaxing rays of the sun had begun to melt my brain. My family are masters of the art of doing nothing – a skill I am still trying to perfect – and I had become afflicted with an oh-so-familiar kind of boredom that leaves me particularly fickle and paralyzed with apathy. When Sunday rolled around, I was ready to go home, but the weather had a few tricks up its sleeve.

A large storm front was sweeping across the southeastern U.S. that evening, making the arrival of my flight back home a bit questionable. To make matters worse, I was already filled with anxious anticipation because My Friend Across the Country (let’s just call him “FATC”) was coming to pick me up and would be staying with me for the next week.

I obsessively checked the weather and even considered hopping on an earlier flight in an effort to beat the storms. But there was no need; my plane departed on time, and I sat there watching a brilliant sunset over the wing. Things were going smoothly on the short flight – drinks were served, babies were laughing, fireworks could be seen bursting 30,000 feet below. The captain had just announced that we had reached a “comfortable cruising altitude” when our little metal bird started bouncing around the clouds like a tennis ball in a clothes dryer. Fantastic.

I’ve always been a nervous flier and have only been free of the theatrics, anti-anxiety meds and motion sickness pills for about a year. For me, a walk through the jetway leads to catastrophic mental images of plummeting to my fiery death. Takeoffs used to be synonymous with hyperventilating and hysterical crying. These days I typically judge my need to panic based on the reactions of the flight attendants – if they’re still smiling, I’m still smiling. But at this moment, no one was smiling.

A flight attendant ran frantically down the aisle with a trash bag, collecting our drink cups and urging us to put up our tray tables. Another got on the intercom and shouted: PLEASE REMAIN IN YOUR SEATS! PLEASE DO NOT GET UP FOR ANY REASON!

This is it. I am going to die. Where will we go down? A watery landing in the Chesapeake? Narrowly avoiding a housing subdivision in Virginia? Will I black out on the way down, or will I be awake until the very last minute? I am never going to get married. I am never going to work for a national magazine. I HAVE SO MUCH LIFE LEFT TO LIVE!

I felt my dinner rising up in my throat, and I was dizzy, shaking and searching for something steady to focus on before losing my cookies all over the seat in front of me. My choices were my own reflection in the window or the blinking light on the end of the wing, which was bobbing up and down with each turbulent bump. I blasted the air conditioning knob directly on my face, craned my neck and stared down that blinking light for the next 20 minutes until we were safely on the ground. When I got home, my roommate said, “Oh, come on. It’s not really turbulence unless someone hits their head on the overhead compartment.”

“Not Typical Puddin’-Like Behavior”

The combination of my near-death experience and the worry of wondering what I was going to do with an entire week of afternoons while everyone else was at work led me to kick FATC out of the house for an afternoon while I regrouped. What the heck were we going to do all week? I took some time to clear my head and realized that no matter what, FATC and I would be happy just spending time with each other.

And you know what? We were. Over the last week, we put lots of miles on the Volkswagen and wandered to Winston-Salem, Chapel Hill and Raleigh. He visited friends from college, and I showed him where I spent my high school years. We watched marathons of “Arrested Development,” went to see the absolutely lovely “Away We Go” and had dinner with one of my friends and his wife. Mid-week we took a break from each other and I met up with my friend Sarah, who was celebrating her birthday with some girlfriends in the EpiCentre.

A friend and I noticed a guy in the crowd that made us both do a double-take, and she relentlessly tried to get me to give him my number. I didn’t really know what to do, given that FATC was staying at my house. Sure, Bar Guy was adorable, but I am a hardcore monogamist. Even if I’m not officially “with” someone – as is the case with FATC – I can’t even talk to another guy without feeling somewhat guilty. Rather than try to explain this to her over the music, I gave in and talked to Bar Guy.

Amidst the screaming crowd and pounding basslines, I managed to decipher about every fifth word that he said – and I immediately knew this was not going to work out. I generally don’t dig guys with thick Southern accents, and he sounded straight out of Mayberry. (No offense to the local flavor. You already know where I hail from, and I’m sure Northeastern abrasiveness is equally unappealing to you.) Sure, he impressed me with his condescending comments about light beer, but I slowly let the space between us grow greater and greater until the awkwardness was palpable and the hint was taken.

That was until said friend shoved a small notebook in my face for me to write down my number. Thinking I should perhaps give him the benefit of the doubt, and still desperately trying to convince myself that I wasn’t technically doing anything wrong, I wrote it down and later texted him that we should meet up sometime when we can actually hear each other talk. His response: Yeah, OK, let me kno. (Yes, he spelled it that way.)

First, there is no faster way to turn off an editor than to exhibit your poor grammar skills – texting included. Second, as any independent woman with a morsel of self-respect knows, a good man takes the initiative on such an offer. He doesn’t respond with “let me know.” I hit "delete" and headed home.

As the week went on, I found myself growing less freaked out and more comfortable with FATC being around – a side effect I definitely would not have predicted. Even my dog seemed to have found a new best friend and was downright depressed when FATC had to leave.

My alarm went off at 5 o’clock this morning for one tear-filled drive to the airport. I returned home and went back to sleep – after all, I need all the energy I can get for that bright-eyed, bushy-tailed sprint to the Observer. The great thing about My Friend Across the Country is that he is my friend across the country. I met him at a time in my life when I wanted nothing more than to be single. And I still am. But in a way, I guess I'm kind of not.

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