It’s been a long time. I was starting to think that the day would never come. But finally, after days and weeks and months of absolute agony, the moment has finally arrived:

I am in a good mood.

A genuinely good mood.

Welcome, Fall. You have been missed.

The people of Nashville tell me that this summer was mild. These words feel like a frying pan to the face – a disorienting blow that leaves me dazed, confused, and frankly, a bit pissed off. What do you mean, “mild”? This summer was the most miserable season OF MY LIFE. I didn’t sleep because it was too hot. I didn’t exercise because it was too hot. I didn’t do my hair because it was too hot. I didn’t smile because it was too hot.

You might call me a weather wimp. But I say to thee, HOLD YOUR JUDGMENT: you never see me scoffing at the people who become depressed in the dark and cold winter months – mostly because I am gleefully drinking tea and being cozy. I’ve never really liked the summer – but this is the first year that I genuinely hated the summer. I honestly do not know if I will willingly choose to live through another Nashville hot-season – not on purpose.

But the doleful summer days are now gone. Or at least – almost gone. I know that it’s supposed to get back into the 80’s tomorrow and for the remainder of the week, and who knows what next week will bring. But today, I am wearing a scarf. I am back to my lunchtime walks. I am feeling the change in the air.

What is this strange feeling?

Oh. Happiness. Long overdue, honest-to-God happiness.

Confession: I haven’t felt like going to church lately.

Blame it on the fact that this is the first time in my life when I haven’t HAD to go to church. As a pastor’s daughter, and then a student at a Christian university, and then a worship leader and church employee, it’s easy to think that I’ve banked enough Sundays in a pew to be able to coast for a good long while. Here in Nashville, if I didn’t show up, no one would notice. No one would fire me. No one is forcing me to go.

Yesterday, I didn’t want to go to church. I spent all day fighting my own justifications, and trying to find a worthy reason not to go. I want to watch my Netflix? I want to go on a long walk? I don’t want to have to talk to anyone? I haven’t Swiffered my floors in awhile? I need to organize my closets? I need to touch up my pedicure? And I’ll read my bible at my kitchen table, I promise! These were my very serious attempts at “good reasons.”

But if there’s anything that I’ve been learning in the past year, it is the importance of showing up. How can we expect God to move in our lives if we don’t show up? If we don’t put ourselves out there? If we don’t take some tiny step of action? The whole “God can’t steer a parked car” idea.

So at 5pm, I went. I showed up – begrudgingly, at first. But I sang the songs, including a hymn that proclaims that “Jesus is a rock in a weary land, a shelter in the time of storm.”

My life has felt stormy lately, as have many of yours. For me, it hasn’t been a hurricane – just the occasional sprinkle of tears and the winds of loneliness, accompanied by the heavy and ever-present haze of self-doubt and insecurity. And my meager efforts at self-protection and security are as flimsy as a plastic umbrella. From Wal-Mart.

But Jesus provides a safe haven, and one of the means he uses is the Church. Say what you want to say about nasty church politics, and the hypocrites within its walls – which, sadly, can be very true realities – but even still, God moves in and through his people when they gather together.

We live in a culture of “What’s in it for me?” and we choose churches based on how they make us FEEL. Is the worship awesome? Do I leave feeling totally joyful? Are there cool people there? Is the service 60 minutes or less, because I’m really busy, you know. Get in, get out – and if you don’t leave feeling completely satisfied, then go some place where you will. I know that I’m guilty of these thoughts.

But I owe everything that I have and everything that I am to Jesus. On my own, I am nothing – he is the one who gives beauty for my ashes, strength for my fear, and peace for my despair. And despite the way that I FEEL, he is worthy of my devotion and worship – which is reason enough to show up at church, even if I don’t have to. He meets me wherever I am. He is a shelter in a time of storm. Amen.

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As a kind-of-related aside, I adore hymns. I love hymns the same way that I, like Greta, love “The Sound of Music” soundtrack – songs that I don’t remember ever learning, but have simply always known. Hymns use fantastic words like “betide” and “sustaineth” and “whereby,” and speak the truth in a way that undoes me. In my mind, they are the meatiest form of art that there is.

What do I do when I come home to an empty apartment at 1am?

19 lbs. from Annie Parsons on Vimeo.

We need to stop using plastic bags.

Now, before you start thinking that I’m a damn “hippie liberal from Seattle” (as I was recently called), let me just say that – as much as I wish it wasn’t true – I am not what you might call an “environmentally conscious” person. I don’t have a compost bin. I don’t drive a hybrid car; I don’t even own a bike. I like the idea of walking to work – but it’s just too hot. I don’t wear organic cotton t-shirts, or jeans made from bamboo. I love hamburgers. I avoid those people outside the grocery store raising money for the baby seals. I don’t always buy organic. One time, instead of recycling it, I threw my old car stereo in the dumpster. For shame.

But I am not a complete lost cause. I never leave the lights on when I don’t need them. I use my heat and AC sparingly (but yes, that’s also because I’m a cheapskate). I do not litter. I cut up the plastic rings from 6-packs before disposing of them. And I am a dedicated recycler. Faithful. Unwavering. Staunch. Even when it means risking my life by driving down to the Kroger on Nolensville Rd. late at night to drop off my recycling, since my apartment doesn’t have curbside pick-up.

Recently, I’ve read several articles about plastic bags and the horrible havoc they are wreaking on our environment. I am not going to preach at you, because I am the least qualified person in the world to tell people to change their habits for the good of the planet. But just some quick facts:

1) 500 BILLION plastic bags are used each year. It costs more to recycle these bags than it does to produce new ones, so they just keep cranking them out.
2) It takes 300 years for a plastic bag to break down – and when it does, it’s into toxic particles that contaminate the soil and the water, and therefore, wildlife.
3) Plastic bags make up a large part of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the mass of trash the size of Texas floating somewhere between Hawaii and San Francisco.

I am not going to be one of those squawking voices that says that we must radically change the way that we live – although I do believe that if we want to see any kind of improvement in the health of our planet, it IS going to take some radical changes.

But today, I just want to encourage you to reuse your plastic bags.

Go a month without picking up a new plastic bag.

I have a canvas grocery sack that I sometimes use, sometimes don’t. I want to start using it every time. And I know that I, for one, have enough plastic bags stuffed under my kitchen sink to last me at least a month. This is my challenge to myself. And I hope that maybe you’ll think about trying it, too.

Just like my stack of washcloths:
Slowly but surely.

It’s hard to believe – impossible to believe – but one year ago today I moved away from Seattle. I just went back and re-read the entry I wrote that day, and it remains one of the most honest things I have ever written; it hits at a deep place, even 365 days later… excuse me – 366. It was a Leap Year.

When I left, I didn’t have a real sense of how long I would be gone, but at my core, I hoped that it would be less than a year. You know: go find myself, get it over with already, and then quickly head home – preferably to get married and buy a house and have babies. The past year has exposed the extent to which I have desired the American Dream – I didn’t realize how much I wanted it until I willingly chose such a solo and unstable lifestyle. In my discomfort, I have longed for comfort. In my confusion, I have longed for clarity. In my chaos, I have longed for calm.

In my anonymity, I have longed to be known.

Moving is, if nothing else, very lonely.

But the past year has also taught me that life is not a checklist; it cannot be a checklist. I cannot look at my circumstances and think, “Once I get this-and-that,” or “When I achieve such-and-so,” I will be one step closer to success, wholeness, and legitimacy. I cannot expect that the American Dream is going to make me happy, because honestly, I am watching it fall flat for people all around me. A home does not equal stability. Money does not equal contentment. And most tragically, love does not necessarily equal forever.

I still hope for these things. In my most honest moments, I have a deep desire for a good and honorable man to share my life with – one whom I will love wholeheartedly and unequivocally. I want babies of my own. I want family vacations and birthday parties and a Bernese Mountain Dog and all of the wonderful goods damnably reserved for wedding registrations. I want a car with keyless entry and a house with a walk-in closet.

Maybe these things are in the cards for me. Maybe not.

But more than anything, I want to walk the road intended for me. And right now, that road continues here in Nashville. It’s all that I have, and it’s all that I am, and despite all feelings to the contrary, I am never alone.

As the Temptress, I make an hourly wage, which equates to a not-very-big salary. Don’t get me wrong: for doing nothing, I make a fortune. And even if I don’t have a lot of extra cash, my bills always get paid. I am grateful for this temp job that is allowing me to have an experience here in Nashville.

But extra money is never a bad thing, right?

So I am currently doing a trial run with one of those Type From Home programs. Companies all over the world have scanned in old documents, and they need people to transcribe them. This seemed like a good fit for me because 1) I can do it at work, and 2) who is the valedictorian of typing? It sounded like easy cash.

But the program that I am using has some stipulations. There is a minimum requirement of pages to be typed each month, and if you don’t meet it – sorry, no money, not even for the pages that you DO type. There is also a maximum number of pages you can type – you may not exceed X number of pages, and therefore, X number of dollars, each month.

Doing the math, I figured out that I must type 15 pages a day to meet the minimum requirement. Not bad – especially when WHAT ELSE AM I GOING TO DO AT MY DESK? So yesterday was my first day, my grand experiment, and I was excited to get going.

Maniacally excited. I typed 75 pages.

When I walked out of work, my eyeballs fell out of my skull and rolled across the parking lot like marbles.

But you know me – I love money! I love cash! Being poor is balderdash!

So I went home, and typed some more – mostly Iranian medical documents about menstruation and chemical compounds. Adding up the pages as I went along, I started calculating the things I was going to buy: a new bottle of perfume, a ticket to Seattle, a new car… visions of Anthropologie dresses and massages and all of the things I’ve always wanted but never been able to buy… Type From Home is going to be my ticket to financial freedom!

But just before bed, I checked the website one more time… and my Blimp of a Thousand Dreams was slashed by the Grand Knife of Reality: there is a 50 page/day maximum. Anything above that is not only deleted, but then subtracted from your total. You type 51, your total is 49. You type 52, your total is 48. So because I typed close to 100 pages, I logged nearly zero.

I have a bad feeling about this.

G is a very nice letter, don’t you think? Not as nice as A – A is just so sturdy and stable. It would be hard to knock over an A, what with its solid base and symmetrical shape. A is the best letter. But G is nice, too. It might roll around a little bit and flounder, but it is more than just a C, because it has a kickstand to steady itself during the times when it really counts.

G is a worthwhile letter because without it, we would never hear giggling or gurgling. Girls would not gaggle. There would be no giraffes or grapes or gouda or gifts or Greta. Gallantry would not exist, and neither would gentlemen in general. I would never feel glad or giddy or glamorous.

True, there would also be no gauntlet, guillotine, or gut-wound. No guns, no grief. No germs. No goodbyes.

But all in all, G is good. Without it, this blog is just a blo.

Remember this?

One of my favorite bloggers is finally BACK IN ACTION and offered this insight on the subject. I am fascinated by the things that Clive Thompson so brilliantly writes about – and how weird, really, because I’m kind of an idiot.

This remains my favorite of his entries.

The word “sigh”
What about the combination of the letters S-I-G-H makes people think of the actual act of sighing? When I sigh, I don’t say “Siiiiiiigh.” I don’t understand. I am perplexed.

“Dilemma” vs. “dilemna”
A few years ago, my dad asked me how I spelled the word “dilemma.”

“D-I-L-E-M-M-A.”

He and my mom looked at each other flabbergasted, shaking their heads, saying, “No! It is not a double M! It has an N: D-I-L-E-M-N-A.” Dilemna. Really? A silent N? Both of my parents agreed that as children, this was the way they had learned to spell the word – although I have yet to find a dictionary or source that validates or explains historically the “mn” spelling.

A quick internet investigation proved that my parents are not delusional (even though we Parsons kids definitely accused them of being such) – it seems as if an entire generation was taught to spell this word in a way that is no longer recognized as legitimate. Why? If it works for “solemn” or “condemn,” why not “dilemna”?

Computer storage
I have no idea what a KB or an MB or a GB is. I don’t know what’s the biggest. I don’t know how much space I have left on my Macbook, and I don’t know how to check. I don’t know how to conserve room. I don’t know what to get rid of. I have no concept of how big a Word document or a picture or an mp3 is. I might be ready to explode, but I won’t know until it’s too late. The same is true when it comes to guacamole.

Buy one get one free
Why can’t I just… get one free?

But one thing I DO understand:
It’s raining! Its raaaaaaaiiining in Nashville!!! Let’s sing the “Doxology.”