Before you hear this little story, there are two things you should know.

1) My sister Becca is definitely a looker: funky and darling and adorable.  She has a heart-shaped face and a great figure and awesome hair.  It’s never a surprise when a dude finds her attractive.

2) Sloan’s Lake, our new neighborhood, is… colorful.  Interesting.  Slightly ghetto.

Got those two facts?  Okay.  Here’s what happened on Saturday.

Becca was walking around the lake, and when a certain man passed her, he looked her up and down and said, “Damn, girl – you look beautiful!”

And despite Becca’s aforementioned beauty, when she relayed this story to me, we both laughed until we cried.

Because this is what she was wearing:

Damn, girl, indeed.

(I’m still laughing.)

As you learned in last Friday’s video, I now live with my sister Becca in the Hooker House.  Get used to it – I have a feeling that Life on Hooker Street will become a popular subject on this blog.

Aside from time time spent under our parent’s roof, this is the first time that Becca and I have lived together.  She is 3 1/2 years younger, half my weight* and twice my sarcasm.

Becca has a dog, and she’s pretty much obsessed with him.  His name is Gabe, but “The Greebs” is the moniker that’s stuck.  So obviously, I now live with the Greebs, too.

Are you curious about these two new roommates of mine?  Here.  I’ll show you.

And in case you forgot, here is me.

So, yes.  This could be interesting.  ACKNOWLEDGED.

But so far, it’s been fun.

I’m teaching Becca things like “you have to rinse your plastic soup container before you put it in the recycling bin.”  And she’s teaching me things like “this isn’t Auschwitz.”

For all he sheds, and despite the fact that he ate one of my books, the Greebs is kind of becoming my best bud.  On hot days, I walk him the half-mile to Sloan’s Lake where he can swim.  And on the days when I work from home, he never leaves my side.  I talk to him in my voice reserved for dogs (admit it: you have a “dog voice,” too), and when I grab his leash and say, “You wanna go?” he jumps in the air like a kangaroo.

In the midst of so much upheaval and transition in our family, I am thankful for a sister to share a home with.  And despite our differences (which are many), there is a comfort in knowing that at the end of the day, I’m not alone.

Even if it means that my couch – and floor – and car – and clothes – are covered in dog hair.

*Not really.  But basically.

My sister Becca is a great gift-giver.  She puts a lot of time and thought and effort into the things that she gives people – and this past Christmas was no exception.

In addition to our “real” presents, she made everyone in our family an awesome dog portrait.  Weird?  NOT IF YOU’RE A PARSONS.

Becca knows that I like those dogs with floppy hair that falls into their eyes, so she made me this:

Isn’t that amazing?  I love it so much.  He’s my imaginary dog – the one that doesn’t care if I leave town for the weekend, or if I don’t come home for 12 hours straight, or if I don’t feed him.  He’s the best.

I think Becca should start a pet portrait business.  All in favor, say aye.

Here at the Emma shop, some serious gems get forwarded along; after all, email IS our native tongue.  As I am 1) a fan of the internet, and 2) feeling completely unoriginal 2) a giver, I thought I would pass along some of my favorites.

Brought to you by my co-workers:
1)    The world’s most amazing movie trailer.
2)    The Tone Matrix.  I could do this for hours.  Who am I kidding?  I DO do this for hours.
3)    If you get nightmares easily, do not look here.

I told you.

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My sister Becca put a spike through her face.  Just one more example of how different we are… and how she can make absolutely anything look cute.

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Debbie’s curry hummus ranks among the top 5 things I have ever tasted.

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Whitney is a girl I’ve never met, but her writing is absolutely lovely.  She left a comment on Monday’s post that I believe is worth highlighting:

“We do what we love because love stretches us even when it’s hard. Even when routine threatens our own boredom and we feel a lack of inspiration that threatens suffocation. We do what we love because love is the point, even and especially when we don’t feel it. Because loving and acting out of love when the feelings aren’t there reminds us that love isn’t a feeling, and we aren’t a chaos of emotion wrapped in a thin layer of skin. We continue to do what we love because, even if it’s music, even if it’s a relationship, even if it’s writing, even if it’s weaving, we remember that love isn’t about what we get out of it. Love teaches us, in desert, in valley, as well as mountaintop.”

Let me begin by saying that U is for a lot of hideous words.

Udder. Ulcer. Urethra. Uvula. Upchuck.

U might be turning into my least favorite letter.

However, U is also for Ubiquitous, which is what I was this weekend – seemingly present everywhere at once. Becca and I did a lot. And friends, let me take the opportunity to make this announcement: anything I said before about possibly turning into an extrovert is being utterly revoked.

I am an introvert, through and through.

Weekends like this – where I am presented with many very, very good options of how to spend my time, and thus feel the need to make them ALL happen – leave me feeling exhausted and peopled-out. So much so that at the Tacky Christmas Sweater Party on Saturday night, I found myself attempting solitude the only way I could figure: by sinking onto the kitchen floor in the corner. It was quieter down there.

Becca and I took part in two Christmas parties, a Josh & Meg show, running club, Whole Foods lunching, Anthropologie browsing, the Frist, a Dickens of a Christmas festival down in Franklin, Rosepepper Mexican food, and of course, plenty of photo ops.

Now she’s gone back to Kansas, where it was 4 degrees this morning.

Now I’m back at my desk, where my mind is elsewhere and everywhere*.

Ubiquity, indeed.

* = the fact that I’m living on my credit card, and I don’t know when/where I’m going to do laundry next, and I’m moving a week from tonight, and how am I going to buy Christmas presents for anyone, and holy cow I’m really training for this half-marathon and that scares the bajeebis out of me because oh man it’s going to be hard, and I need a haircut, and I wonder which of my friends will get engaged THIS Christmas, and is Nashville really going to be covered in ice tomorrow, and I’m still a temp receptionist, and I miss my Seattle friends, and I wish I could go hang out with my friend Christina in Boston, and I’m sorry but I just couldn’t get a video together today.

You know how kids are always told to never touch a power line?

How do the birds live?

This was my “maundering pondering” of the morning, as I drove to the airport to fetch Becca. Little Sister is visiting for the weekend; unfortunately, I am at work today, for temping takes no holiday – even on a Nashville-wide “snow day.”

Honestly, people. I saw nary a flake.

But I am happy for my friends of the matriculated variety, who have found themselves with a day void of responsibilities. I am rounding them up, along with my unemployed (okay, SELF-employed) pals, for a lunchtime rendezvous at the Panera near my office on West End.

That’s right, blog stalkers. You know where to find me come 12:20. I’ll be surrounded by my posse, though, so you might have a hard time breaking through the entourage.

In other news, I will be cross-posting on my friend Mark’s running blog with a featured “East Nasty of the Week” write-up. If you are not a Nashvillian or my mother, you’re probably not interested. But if you DO live here in Music City, and want to train for the half-marathon happening in April, the East Nasties are the coolest runners in the city.

But since I’m always last, I don’t know if I count as one of them yet…

Happy weekend to all. Becca and I are ready to show Nashville no mercy. Stay tuned for a full report… and maybe even a video blog?? I know: you expect nothing less.

Since I sit at a desk all day long, I find myself clicking out into the internet. I click and click and click until suddenly, I realize that I have no idea how I got to where I am. Like when I came across this. And also, this.

But the other day, I was so happy to arrive here.

This is the funniest story I have read in a long, long time.

So I forwarded the link to my sister, and then we engaged in a little Facebook chat about it:

Becca: It reminds me of a story my friend told me. Except she was in bed with her cousin. And it was pee. Real pee – not even lemonade.

Me: BUT THAT IS THE TOTAL OPPOSITE OF THIS STORY.

At slumber parties, you never want to be the one to fall asleep first. Whoever succumbs to slumber first runs the risk of her pals deviously dipping her hand into warm, and then immediately following, icy water, causing the victim to wet the bed.

That was Austin.

Today is October 1st, and yet the temperature was well above 90 degrees, at 95% humidity. Ah, but the clever Austinites have figured out the miracle of air conditioning, and they know how to blast it. Therefore, my experience was a revolving door of hot / cold / hot / cold, leaving me in a perpetual state of needing to pee.

Or maybe it was all of the ice chips I was feeding myself in order to stave off a stroke.

Austin is amazing. I loved it. I want to live on South Congress street and eat at taco bars every day. I want to be one of those effortlessly cool girls in cowboy boots and hip jewelry, nursing a Corona and speaking Spanish intermittently. I want to claim every lone star I see.

I do NOT want to sweat. But I suppose I could powder my nose recurrently.

Austin is like that beautiful, intelligent, creative woman – the one we all know – seemingly unattainable to outsiders. And Austinites are the mysterious ones who have won her heart, who have achieved her favor. It is cacti and palm trees, Spanish crosses and mosaic art, bats and armadillos, vintage and edgy, red and yellow and gold and turquoise.

We loved it so much, we decided to become snake charmers.

We were so Texan, we found a LIVE LIZARD in the light fixture of Becca’s closet.

And I woke up each morning to this guy, who wanted to spoon.

I left Becca and Gabe after their first day of school, and they will be the stars of the class.

“Did Thomas Edison invent the light bulb or the telephone?”

“I don’t know… both?”

“Or did Albert Einstein invent the light bulb?”

“Maybe.”

“I can’t remember.”

“I think that Thomas Edison invented both… but then again, Annie, I’m not very smart.”

Here I sit, in a Red Roof Inn in Austin, Texas. I am here with my sister Becca and her adorable puppy dog Gabe after an 11 hour drive south from Kansas City.

On Monday, Becca will have her first day of dog training school at Triple Crown Dog Academy. If thoughts of “dog training school” leave you at a loss, then don’t worry – you’re not the only one. Becca herself wrote a great blog about her dubious thoughts about what this experience might be like. I? Think that it’s rad that she’s following her passion.

To be honest, I felt a bit hesitant to take this trip with Becca and Gabe today. Last week, Gabe barfed all over the back seat of my Honda – rivers and fountains of chunky brown liquid that soaked into my upholstery and pooled in the space between the seat and the door – and the scent isn’t giving any indication that it will fade in the future… ever. The last thing in the world that I wanted was a repeat scenario. But today, the three of us lived out my wildest road tripping dreams: in Becca’s black Toyota Tacoma, driving south, with a dog, listening to music, seeing places I had never seen before. The only thing that would have made it more fun is if our other siblings could have been along – but we settled for a phone call to Sarah, urgently asking for directions to a coffee establishment in Edmond, Oklahoma. Gabe was a perfect angel, except when he decided that he NEEDED to hang out on my lap, which meant that his furry butt was in my face.

Now, since you have probably been craving a list from me, I give you:

“Things I saw on the way to Austin”:

* swarms of birds, “Planet Earth” style, between Kansas City and Wichita
* a billboard: “Just say yes to Jesus… or REGRET IT FOREVER,” in northern Oklahoma
* Oklahoma City, which is the site of the fabled Oklahoma City Bombing… and this nightmare
* so many Subway franchises, I couldn’t count
* “The Auto Ranch” north of Dallas, which, as far as I could tell, is just a sprawling field where cars go to die
* a billboard: “Call us for your Vasectomy Reversal: 1-713-REVERSE,” south of Ft. Worth
* a bumper sticker: “Cowboys for Jesus” (I should get the female counterpart for my Honda)
* a rest-stop painted as the flag of Texas, complete with matching trash cans
* Waco, Texas – two words: David Koresh
* a shirt in a truck stop: “Silly boys – trucks are for GIRLS!” (I almost bought it for Becca)

Tomorrow, we’ll drop Gabe at a doggie daycare at a local Petsmart, and head out to see the city. Imagine me all Sandra Bullock-esque, in a long flowing skirt and a tank top with cool, funky jewelry.

That’s how I’ve always imagined Austin.