All of you over-achieving, perfectionistic control freaks out there, raise your hand.

I mean, I can’t be the only one, right?

I have a really hard time when I can’t do something perfectly, which is unfortunate because I can do basically nothing perfectly.  And lately, I’ve been doing a lot of things, which means that I’ve been confronted with imperfection all over the place.

My spiritual life is not perfect.  My diet is not perfect.  My money management is not perfect.  My exercise routine is not perfect.  My sleep habits are not perfect.  My relationships are not perfect.  My abilities are not perfect.  My heart – oh, my heart – is far, far, far from perfect.

Not a single one of my efforts is perfect.  And I really hate it.

I have so much that I want to say about this, but I can’t even write about my imperfections perfectly.  Gah.  Gahhhhhhhhhh.

- – - – - – - -

This was my bed last night.

I stared at it, and wished that it would just fix itself, but it didn’t, so I just moved my computer and slid underneath it all and went to sleep.

- – - – - – - -

Now it’s the morning.  All of the stuff is still here on top of me.

- – - – - – - -

On Sunday, I was on a walk, and I walked past a realtor hosting an open house.  I wound up going in, just because I’m nosy and take any opportunity to snoop where I wouldn’t otherwise wouldn’t be able to.

I didn’t expect to fall in love with this house, but I did.  Like, deep, soulful love.  Like, I was mentally arranging my furniture.  Like, I was imagining backyard parties and the perfect hutch for the dining room.  Like, the combination of the hardwood floors and the interior brick walls and the incredible range in the kitchen was lethal to my Dave Ramsey-loving self, and all of a sudden, I was trying to figure out how to pull together $389,000 before nightfall.

Then I just walked back to the Hooker House.

- – - – - – - -

Starting tomorrow, I get to do something really cool.  I get to fly to Sundance Film Festival and call it “my job.”

You know I’ll report back on any celeb-encounters.

All of last year, I lived in the apartment above the most silent man of all time.  The only time I ever saw him was when he would stand outside his front door smoking cigarettes with his headphones in, avoiding my eye contact as I would pass him on my way to the third floor.  The bearded mute would never speak – nay, make any noise at all.  For any awkwardness, he was quite possibly the best neighbor I’ve ever had.

I came back after New Years to find that the noiseless hermit had moved out, and been replaced by a frat house.

In the past month, I have occasionally woken up at 4am, wondering why I’m awake.  Oh.  Because there is BELLOWING beneath me.

On Saturday night around 7pm, the hollers had reached a crescendo worthy of an admittedly passive-aggressive stomping on my floor.  Everything fell silent for a moment – until they responded with a broomstick to the ceiling.

Oh hell no.

I left home for a bit, but later that night when I returned, I listened to the crowd of hooligans belt out “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off.”  I resolved that if the noise continued past 11pm, I would don brass knuckles and storm apartment #201.

I spent the next 20 minutes pumping myself up for an all-out brawl – but right as I was ready to rumble, I listened to the battalion of delinquents file out of the apartment and down the stairs, heading up the block to the bars on Colfax.  Little do they know that they just narrowly escaped the wrath of a girl with two cocktails in her – just loose enough to not be held responsible for any words or actions.

But last night at 2am – a weeknight, mind you – I was stirred from a dead sleep by yells and laughs and “wooooo!“s.  It was on.  I pulled on my parka over my pajamas, stood in the living room for a minute wishing I had someone to fight my battles for me, and then marched downstairs.

My firm knock on the door was answered by a girl who hid behind it.  She hid behind it.  I never saw her face, but I heard her whimpers of embarrassment to the three men on the couch.  Oh honey, yes, you should be embarrassed.  You should be mortified.  You are sharing a one-bedroom apartment with these goons (do you have bunk-beds? Family bed? I’m genuinely curious), and obviously none of you have jobs, or you wouldn’t be so lively in the middle of the night.

“Hey, y’all,” I crooned.  I often find my alter-ego has a Southern accent.  “My name is Annie, and I’m your neighbor, and I’m so sorry this is the first time that we’re meeting.  But it’s 2am, and -6° outside, and yet I’m standing at your door in my pajamas.  This is how loud you are.  Can you please keep it down?”

Never in my life have I felt so much like an annoying parent-chaperone on a high school band trip.  It was a dark moment for my “cool” factor.

But for my sanity?  VICTORY.

I am switching apartments in a few months, and will no longer have to deal with these ruffians.  Until then, God help them, because these days, my tolerance is wearing thinner than the walls.

My cell phone plan is with Verizon – because yes, I can hear you now.

The best phone I’ve ever had is the LG 8300 – the flip-phone of GLORY, that’s what.  It was perfect – curved naturally to the shape of my face, easy to find at the bottom of a bottomless purse, navigable.

No, it wasn’t as cool as an iPhone.  Sure, I had to text my name “2 – 66 – 66 – 444 – 33.”  Yes, I felt like a loser when I had to ask what an “app” was.

But the LG 8300 was like my 1990 Honda Accord in that, although brokeass and jankety, it never let me down.  I loved it so much that I kept it for 4 years – longer than I’ve ever had a boyfriend or an apartment or a job.  But this summer, it started to freak out, and I knew that it was only a matter of time before it died completely.  So in September, I threw a hissy fit, prayed the Serenity Prayer, and drove myself to the worst place on earth – the Verizon store – to get a new phone.

People.  I have no words to describe how much I hate my new phone.

It’s a Samsung slab of horror.

I hate it more than I hate peas, more than I hate Nashville summers, more than I hate superfluous exclamation points.  I don’t hate it as much as I hate animal abuse, or, you know, WAR.  But it’s up there.

This phone is to me as Toby is to Michael Scott.

The buttons are tiny and hard to press.  The font on the screen is ugly.  Anytime I want to do anything, I have to press two magical buttons to “unlock” it.  It has horrid ringtones.  Anything I try to do, it does the opposite.  It’s too skinny to find in my purse.  Sometimes I accidentally hit a button on the side and it starts talking.  The fact that it even exists makes me want to scream.

And, well.  That’s all.

I guess I’ll go to work now.

I ordered a $39 throw pillow from Home Decorators Collection.  They charged me $15 in taxes and shipping.  It arrived and was ugly, so I sent it back.  UPS charged me $12.04 for return postage.

Returning items via mail always makes me nervous – I hope they credit my card like I asked them to.  Otherwise, I have just spent $66 on something that Becca said I could have gotten “from a grandma’s house” and I don’t even have anymore.

I think I might try for these Pottery Barn babies next:

Then again, I’ll need to wait and see if I’m refunded for the ugly pillow first.  That was all the pillow money I had.

Surely you are bored by now.  I’ll stop here.

Although I watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics last week, I have yet to watch an actual Olympic.  However, I must say that I’m liking Shaun White these days.  I don’t know why – I never paid him any attention before.  But isn’t he so likable?  His big smile and happy heart?

Don’t you think Shaun White has a happy heart?  He seems like it.

You know who DOESN’T have a happy heart today?  Yours truly.  The DMV is officially the thorn in my side, the hitch in my get-up.  After basically being accused of being a criminal and driving a stolen vehicle, they refused to issue me Colorado license plates.  I now have no choice but to make an appointment with a little organization called the COLORADO STATE PATROL to clear my name.

It’s practically the Salem Witch Trials.

Except, come to think of it, not really the same at all.

I am spoiled, and I am the first to admit it.  Why, you ask?  Well, among many other reasons, I have two identical black Macbooks – one personal, and one for work.  Let’s be real: that is just ridiculous.  More than anyone could ever ask for.

But last week, my personal Macbook went kaput.  It’s broken – broken like… searching for a simile… broken like… my toe?  Except my toe has a fighting chance at mending – and I really don’t think that the computer will be resurrected.  I turn it on, and it pulls up a white screen.  That’s all.  It’s like the moment after Juliette hits the bomb with the rock, except it never skips to the credits.  Eternal nuclear uncertainty.

Get over it, Annie – right?  I mean, I have a WHOLE OTHER COMPUTER.  But my personal laptop held all of my iTunes, all of my pictures, all of my super secret documents that no one is ever allowed to see.  Most of it is backed up on an external hard drive, but I don’t want to put it on my work computer.  So there it will remain – locked up forever.

Mostly this is bad because I want to sync my iPod to my iTunes to get my new music and podcasts.  And not only can I not put them on my iPod, I can’t even access my iTunes at all.  I am SOOOOOOO BORED with my current selection of songs (I only have ninety million or something).  And Ira Glass is saying things that I might never get to hear – which makes me panic.

IRA!!!!  I NEED YOU!!!!!!!!

I had recently downloaded Sara Groves’ latest, “Fireflies and Songs,” but have no way of hearing it again.  Lady Antebellum has a new album released today.  The Handy Graham recommended Sarah Jarosz – and since he was the first one to tell me about eastmountainsouth, I trust him – not that it matters, since I can’t get my grubby paws on these songs.

Today, I have India Arie and Phil Collins on YouTube.  It’s all I have left.

When I moved to Nashville two years ago, I switched to Bank of America because I never wanted to have to switch my bank account again – so naturally, I chose the bank of AMERICA.

It turns out that Bank of America is actually the bank of NOT DENVER.

- – - – - – - -

Yellow traffic lights in Denver last roughly half as long as they do anywhere else.  When the light turns yellow, it means, “Arrest, or be arrested.”

- – - – - – - -

Every 5 minutes or so, my toilet screeches like the Nazgûl.

- – - – - – - -

The doctors installed the WRONG PORT in my MOTHER’S CHEST.  That’s probably the only time you’ll ever see the words “my mother’s chest” on this blog, so soak it up.  She showed up for her first round of chemo yesterday, and caused quite the ruckus when they discovered the WRONG PIECE OF HARDWARE SURGICALLY INSTALLED IN HER BODY.

Chemo went forward anyway, and she goes back again today.  The “Red Devil” is now pumping through her veins.  And righteous indignation is pumping through ours.

I know that I have mentioned that I despise the winky face.  And it’s true – the winky face makes me barf.  End of story.  Forever.

But there is another thing that has been weighing on my mind, and that is the smiley emoticon.

:)

See?  Ugh.

Now, I use the smiley in email communication – but only in it’s purest form: the sideways simpleton.  To me, it brings to mind an ironic, closed-lipped side-smile, à la Jim Halpert.

: )

Even that isn’t an accurate representation, because I had to put a space in between the “eyes” and the “mouth” just to prevent WordPress from hijacking my style and creating a monster.

Because if there is one thing that really irks me, it is when my simple, sideways symbol is – unbeknownst to me – translated into a big-toothed, yellow-faced, sphere-headed, body-less imbecile.  It makes me look like a moron.

- – - – - – - -

In other news, in response to an unexpected surge of administrative prowess, my friend PZC recently called himself “an organizational Jason Bourne (kicking ass but unsure where it came from and still not sure where I’m headed).”

I thought that was delightful.

When I got home from work last night, the power was out.  It didn’t come back on for 15 hours.  FIFTEEN HOURS.  Right as I was walking out the door for work this morning, all of the lights kicked on – so then, I had to put down my purse, put down my Vera Bradley quilted lunch bag, put down my laptop, put down my gym clothes, and do a walk-through of the house to turn everything off.

My bedroom is upstairs, where, sans air conditioner, it is at least 12 degrees hotter than the rest of the house.  Needless to say, last night was sheer misery.  But that’s all I’m going to say about that, because this summer, I haven’t been complaining as much about the heat (proud?).  It doesn’t mean that I’ve been enjoying it any more, or even hating it any less – just not verbalizing my suffering as often or as strongly.

But just because I won’t talk about the heat doesn’t mean I won’t talk about other things.

Yet another brilliant segue by Annie Parsons.

But.  I don’t know where to take it.  So I guess that this is the end – unless you’ll allow me to add these things: it’s really difficult to read white letters on a black background, crouton rhymes with futon, and vote for Gabe.

Otherwise, this is what you would have been subjected to yesterday.

Annie Parsons… found 7 bug bites.
Annie Parsons… discovered 2 more bites.
Annie Parsons… that makes 9.
Annie Parsons… is going to scratch her skin off.
Annie Parsons… is watching the poison curlicue beneath her skin.
Annie Parsons… is researching bug bites online.
Annie Parsons… thank you, Google images.
Annie Parsons… made a table and is tallying points for the culprit.
Annie Parsons… has narrowed it down to a spider.
Annie Parsons… or a chigger.
Annie Parsons… actually, 5 points for ants.
Annie Parsons… these are really, really red.
Annie Parsons… is itching like a coke whore.
Annie Parsons… is changing her bed sheets.
Annie Parsons… is shaking out her quilt.
Annie Parsons… cannot fall asleep.
Annie Parsons… cannot fall asleep.
Annie Parsons… cannot fall asleep.
Annie Parsons… IS THAT A BUG?
Annie Parsons… is paranoid.
Annie Parsons… cannot fall asleep.

The thought of insects feasting on my flesh makes me want to burn my bed.