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Prologue

People hate me.

Some of them openly despise me.

I'd bet a couple dozen would cheer if I were maimed.

People. Hate. Me.

For some reason when I meet someone for the first time, I feel compelled to tell them this. "Hi, my name is Sadie Price. Yeah, great to meet you, too! People hate me." I've gotten pretty good at suppressing the urge to say it out loud, but it's still there swirling around in my mind. I'll shake a person's hand, exchange the usual pleasantries, and look from the outside to be a completely sane person -- while a part of me silently repeats the words, "People hate me. People. Hate. Me. Peoplehateme."

I think the reason this particular little neurosis developed is that it's not some imaginary thing. The idea that people hate me is not the invention of an irreparably wounded self-esteem or chemical imbalance. I am not some terminal wallflower who feels unworthy of kindness. I'm no paranoid agoraphobe with an irrational fear that people are judging her. I am a twenty-eight-year-old woman whose longest and most satisfying relationships are with a four-thousand-dollar camera, a fully restored 1979 Camaro (a gift from my father), and a lovely man called Antoni who works in the shoe section of Bergdorf's. I pay my taxes -- approximately on time. I've spent Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve for the last five years at a homeless shelter on the Lower East Side. I'm blonde and blue eyed (like your local TV weather girl, not Marilyn Monroe). I'm a college graduate with a BA in fine arts. I'm somebody's best friend. And, I am a paparazzi.

People do, in fact, hate me.

When I first started out in this business the people-hating- me thing really rubbed me the wrong way. The same kind of rub as, say, a dislodged underwire gouging into your skin. While you're forced to do jumping jacks. On a trampoline. In those days, when I met someone I would make excuses, "Yes, but I'm not that kind of paparazzi." I'd give them a well-rehearsed briefing on my degree in fine arts. I'd tell them that I was really known for my stripped-down black-and-white portraits, and that these portraits were praised by my subjects for their beauty, and by professors for their technique and artistry. At my lowest point, I even went so far as to recount -- word for word -- an article in the alumni mailer about how my fellow classmates had voted me Graduate with the Most Potential.

My best friend, Brooke, was the first person I met who greeted the news of my occupation with anything but suspicion and ire. Her first words were, "How completely fascinating! A paparazzi, huh? Give me all the dish." It was then that I realized practically everyone in the industrialized world has an opinion about the paparazzi, and in the eyes of most people every paparazzi is that kind of paparazzi. These opinions are so well established that they will prevail no matter how I might try to explain myself. This realization, despite the fact that it was an embarrassingly long time coming, was a pivotal moment in my life...and my popularity at cocktail parties.

I now understand that all the people in the world don't actually hate me personally. The more rational part of me gets that only some people hate the idea of me -- they hate the job, the institution. Yet, even in the face of these strides in amateur self-psychology, the peoplehateme repeating part of my brain absolutely refuses to make this distinction. So, hi. My name is Sadie Price. People hate me.

Copyright © 2006 by Sarah Castellano and Emily S. Morris