The Internet of Questions and Things

When I have a question, I usually ask Google for the answer. It's comforting when I start typing and see that other people have wondered and wandered the hallowed Google pages in search of the same things, the same answers.
I've googled "What is Gangam Style?" (it's a song and a reference to a location) "How does the Note 4 measure blood-oxygen levels?" (wizardry and some really cool technology) "What does yasou mean?" (it's a Greek salutation).

But what do you do when you have a question you'd really rather ask a human but don't know how to?

I have a friend who blogs, and she mentions her late sister sometimes in her posts. I wanted to know how she died. I knew it couldn't have been good--I knew the sister was young.

So I Googled the sister's name. It was easy but uncomfortable.

The first search result: an obituary. 22 years old, beautiful, with a 1-year-old girl left behind. No mention of how.
The second result: "Woman ID'd in Crash." I felt residual pain waves that must have gone through the family's hearts when they heard the news.
The article wasn't helpful--it was early morning, 1:25am, the car collided with a truck, it took 3 hours to clean up, and the right lanes were blocked. No mention of anything concrete: why was she there? Was the truck at fault? Had someone been drinking? Was someone upset? Where was she going and what did the investigation yield? What color were the stars when she last saw them?

The next search results: the sister had participated in a study on asthma, which I also have. The photo in the news article shows the sister holding her baby. It could only have been taken a few months before her death.

I was frustrated that no one would say what happened. Why hadn't it been talked about? Then I realized: I was doing the same thing, tiptoeing around the issue, not wanting to talk about it either.

I don't have anything new or interesting to say about death. I just felt moved. It felt so strange to look at pictures of a woman who (presumably) didn't know she was going to die soon. It made me wonder if I will leave behind pictures and other people will Google my name and see...what? Pictures of my wedding? My Instagram account, where there are no pictures of me, because I am still trying to learn how I want to look when I grow up?
I am the same age now as my friend's sister was when she died. I need to remember that I might not come home one evening because someone might not look over their shoulder when they change lanes too quickly. I don't say this to be morbid, but to remind myself that there's so much more to the trite "live each day as though it was your last." There are little things, like leaving your almost-refinished MCM table unfinished, still lacking its last coat of polyutherane. Procrastination isn't the thief of time; it's only an accomplice to death.

Someday I'll ask my friend about her sister, when the time is right. And I will make my doctor's appointment for a new inhaler this Saturday. I've put it off for too long.

To Start

The last time I started a blog it was because I wanted to be cool. You know, because I was 16 and the guy(s) I was crushing on hard wouldn't pay attention to me, so I was like, you know what? Imma start a blog and then they'll get to know me and follow me rabidly and realize I am so much cooler than that other girl with the awesome bedazzled jeans and stuff.
Also I figured I had oodles of wisdom to share and a blog seemed like the best place to just let all my deep life experiences hang out.
The blog was called "DictioCarrie" but since the domain name expired long ago, I can't figure out how to access the content and link to it so you can share in my teenage angst. Oh shucks.

So I'm starting a new blog, and you know, 16-year-old me would use this first post as the manifesto for all the posts to follow and just bombard you with all the magical melodies and thought patterns that occur in my head with just a pinch of calculated yet heartwarming sass and drollness.

The only concession I will make to my inner teen is to point out that the title of this blog has a double meaning because this is me, just going about my life like that song that has the chorus "Carry oo-oo-o-oo-on, carry on, carry on, carry on" but then it's also just me carrying on like when Emperor Cuzco says "What is this guy babbling about? He's like the thing that wouldn't shut up."

My name is Carrie, I got married to David a few weeks ago and am having an identity crisis with this name-change thing, my cat Sandy makes me inexplicably happy, and I like to cook and express myself with either run-on sentences or grammatically-correct paragraph-long sentences. Vacuuming also has a special place in my heart because cleanliness and a double u are a killer combination.

Nice to meet you.