When I lived in Seattle, I was very, very independent. I lived alone. I paid my bills. I assembled my own Target furniture. When I dropped off my car for a repair in Ballard, I walked the 3 ½ miles to work rather than call for a ride. It wasn’t that people weren’t willing to help – because I had amazing people in my life there – it was more of my own attitude, the attitude that had been modeled to me. The liberated, liberal upper left-hand corner of the nation requires a certain self-sufficiency.

Seattle taught me to take care of myself. Seattle expected me to take care of myself.

Let me tell you what I love about living in Nashville – chivalry is not dead. Men get the doors – front doors, car doors, office doors. If there is something heavy to be carried, a man won’t let a woman carry it – even if she is capable. When a girl needed a chair at 3 Crow Bar, Hunter jumped out of his seat to offer it up. When Julie, Mel, and I have needed various things hung on our walls, Josh and Paul have been at the ready. When the kitchen drawer broke and all of the pans crashed onto my foot (and I swore and maybe cried for a second), Seth told me that he would take care of it – and he fixed the drawer. IT WAS A MIRACLE!

Because I have never been taught to expect these kindnesses, every favor feels like a marvel. Even when I was walking on a sidewalk with a guy, and he switched places with me so I would be further from traffic, and I thought, “That’s ridiculous – if a car swerves, WE’RE BOTH DEAD – why the effort?” – still, there was a little part of my spirit that felt so appreciative.

In Seattle, the feminist culture taught me to never rely on a man, and how to stand on my own two feet – and I’m glad. I prefer to drive. I can order my own meal, thank you very much. I am well-practiced in balancing stacks of papers, groceries, books, and a tray of lattes, all the while teetering on high heels.

But Nashville is teaching me what it means to open up to those sweet souls who treat me with kindness, just because – just because I’m a woman, and just because they care. As a result, my hard, independent, feminist heart is softening, and growing, and more willing to receive.

But promise me – the moment I start singing “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” give me a swift punch in the throat.

It is 2003. I am at a Seattle coffee shop with the two boys I used to nanny for, then 3 and 5; I am ordering them hot chocolates. We find a Magic 8 ball by the cash register.

Annie: OH YOU GUYS! Check this out – you shake it and ask it a question, and it tells you the answer.

Big Brother (enthusiastically): Cool! Will I be a spy someday? … YES!

Little Brother (shake shake shake, then holding the ball close to his face, softly whispers): I love you.

Big Brother: Hey, that’s not a question. Here, let me try – am I going to die soon? Not likely. AWESOME!

Little Brother (shake shake shake, thinking hard, then): I wish I had a squirrel club.

Big Brother (now angry): NO. That is NOT a question. A question has to have an answer.

Little Brother (thinking hard, finally the light going on, then tentatively asking): Um… is mouses bad?

- – - – - – - -

BONUS FEATURE:
When I took them home that day, I thought it would be cool to continue with the same future-predicting theme. So I took two blocks from their wooden block set, and used a Sharpie to write different answers on each side – sort of a dice they could roll for answers. Little Brother immediately took his and ran to his room.

And when I cracked the door to check on him, he was standing against the wall, and with one giant, dramatic roll of the dice across the floor, he yelled, “DO YOU LIKE EAGLES?”

- – - – - – - -

Happy weekend. I wish I had a squirrel club, too.

I have been sitting here for almost 4 hours, trying to write something. Anything. It doesn’t need to be a blog, it doesn’t need to be a song – but could I just find the right words to communicate something? My creativity seems to have ground to a halt.

However, here is what I know today:

1) I am incredibly happy to see fall attire showing up in department stores and boutiques. I have not had expendable income for some time, and so I don’t expect that I’ll be getting my grubby little mitts on any new clothes anytime soon. But just the sight of light-weight sweaters, muted colors, and “transition pieces” gives me hope that the autumn is (slowly, painfully) on its way. THANK YOU GOD.

2) The other day, I found myself casually chatting with Kix Brooks about his recent experience running with the bulls. A few hours later, I baked cookies for the ex-cons across the street. When I moved here, there was no way for me to know what sorts of people would be brought into my life. But I have been delightedly surprised by the variety.

3) There are billboards next to the Nashville Zoo boasting “Tim Macaw!” and “Zebra McEntire!”

4) I have not been to Seattle for over 3 months now, which is the longest in 8 years I’ve gone without a visit. I have no current plans for a visit, and no resources to make a trip happen. It makes me so sad, especially when I think of breathable air. I have to live there again at some point. When it comes down to it, Seattle is home. Seattle will always be home.

5) I am grateful for my little buddy’s life, and hopeful for his future.

6) I have another show lined up for next week – which means that I’d better get busy practicing my guitar. I can’t play the same songs again! Oh, the stress…

7) Are my brother and sister-in-law rocking the house these days, or what?

8) I am feeling ready to end my much-longer-than-anticipated stint as The Temptress. But I will only take another job if it’s a good fit. Does anyone want to hire me? I’m like a Swiss Army Knife – I can do whatever you need me to do.

9) Sarah came and got her bed yesterday, so I am reduced to sleeping on an air mattress (not this one) until further notice. It’s not so bad. It’s like fancy camping. This morning, I drank my coffee in bed while watching an episode of “Felicity” on my laptop. So, really fancy camping.

10) I really love horses. I think that most little girls go through a “horse phase” – usually sometime between the “doll phase” and the “boy phase.” I went through the “boy phase,” and am weirded out to say that I THINK I CAME OUT OF IT. No more “boy phase” – too much drama. Back to horses.

Recently, I strongly considered moving back to Seattle. I was presented with a really great opportunity – one that was incredibly tempting. A job, a chance to be with my old friends, a wide open road straight back to my Emerald City.

But I said no. I’m going to stick around Nashville, at least through the end of 2008. I just have to see. I don’t know what I’m hoping for or looking for or waiting for, but I just have to see what might present itself during this time. I’ve been loving the city more and more, and making friends, and settling into a routine – I can’t pack it all up and leave now.

Still, it was a really big deal for me to say no to Seattle. It was so enticing – I could almost smell the ocean. It would have been so easy to say yes – to pick up right where I left off, and re-enter my beautiful life of comfort and, in many ways, what I now see as luxury. But I chose Nashville.

And so as a result, you want to know what I chose?

Humidity so ubiquitous that the toilet paper separates on the roll. Heat so oppressively constant that I lie in bed at night thinking, “This must be what it feels like to die.” A steady coat of sweat, making makeup senseless. More cockroaches in the kitchen. A waning opportunity to spend any time outside, for fear of a heat stroke. An astronomical utility bill from running my mediocre AC window unit. Towels that never fully dry. Relentless sticky discomfort.

And I hear that this is just the beginning. So far, June has made me think, “I am so hot and cranky, I cannot go on.” But the locals tell me that July turns Nashville into an absolute sauna, and just when you think it cannot get any worse, August descends downright demonically.

Lord help me. Literally. GOD, SAVE ME FROM THIS HEAT.

But I chose this. Over salt water and bright blue sky and clear, glorious Seattle days, I chose to walk outside every morning straight into the hot, smelly breath of Satan. So I should stop complaining. I should.

But you know I won’t. It’s just not my style.

You probably have some questions for me. And I am here to answer them. Preemptively. That’s right: I am going to answer questions that you have yet to vocalize.

We’ll start with some obvious ones.

Annie, can we see your new earrings?
Of course!

I got these from Mud & Mint’s Etsy shop, where there are all sorts of lovely things available.

What else are you coveting from Etsy these days?
If by “covet” you mean, “think about as I fall asleep at night, and fantasize about all of the different possible uses for, and stand flabbergasted that something so amazingly perfect exists,” then it would have to be this:

I’m swooning. Literally. This is the world’s most amazingly ideal, best-case-scenario bag. I’m saving my pennies, and thinking about harvesting pop cans from the side of the freeway for nickels. And busking for quarters.

What else do you want, besides that bag?
A massage. That is always the answer.

How long are you going to live in Nashville?
Longer than you think.

Or.

Shorter than you think.

Depending on how long you think.

(I really have no earthly idea. What should I do with my life? If you have any ideas, my comment board is an open forum.)

When can we hear some of the songs that you are allegedly writing? You ARE writing, right? Not that we would know. Since there’s nothing to prove that you are actually writing any new material.
I’m glad you asked! I have some studio time scheduled for next week, and will hopefully get 2 new demos out of the deal.

I’ve actually been writing quite a bit lately. Are the songs “good”? Well, “good” is a relative term. I think that they stand on their own. I think that they’re better than my early material. I think that I like them, and that’s a fairly new feeling for me.

Don’t worry: you will be alerted just as soon as these songs are available to be listened to. I’ll throw them on MySpace, and we’ll have a song-unveiling party right here on the blog. Bring beer.

Do you miss Seattle?
Desperately. Every day.

I know that I tend to be a revisionist, and idealize certain times in my life which, in actuality, were far from perfect.

But I kind of think that my life in Seattle was close to perfect.

Maybe someday I’ll look back on this time in Nashville and think the same thing. Like, “Remember when I used to walk around the grocery store for free-sample dinners? Remember when I sat in silence at a desk for 8-hours each day? Remember the feeling of being completely anonymous, but not exactly in a good way? Remember the roaches? Yeah. That was awesome.”

So. Maybe not “awesome.” But “living.” And really – aren’t those two words kind of the same thing?

Even in the doldrums of everyday life, me thinks yes.

Can we ask you more questions?
Sure! Post any that you have for me, and I’ll try my best to answer them.

I spent a large part of this weekend wondering why I ever left Seattle. I miss it – everything about it, except for the slugs. I miss my friends and the weather and the water and the way that the streets never quite run in a straight line. I miss the yummy coffee and salmon and sushi. I miss my beloved Wallingford. I miss the smell of the air. I really, really miss Lake Union.

Mostly, I miss the fact that I am KNOWN in Seattle. I don’t have to explain my back-story, and I don’t feel like I have to be “on” in order to make people like me. In Seattle, I feel like I belong.

But that is not to say that I need to be living there right now. I DO belong there. But maybe I can belong other places, too.

I arrived back at my little Nashville abode tonight, and I breathed a big ol’ sigh of relief. I rolled in my suitcases and checked the mailbox and spent a little while unpacking. It’s nice to be back home.

Home.

This is my “for right now” home. And even though things may not be as easy or natural for me here right now, I am glad that I came. I’m glad that I’m here. Nashville is great, and the people that I have been meeting here are wonderful, and this is where I am for right now.

What am I going to do with this time?

Graham and I are in Seattle for the weekend. Since moving to Nashville, I have been traveling every-other-weekend or so, and it makes me feel very important and glamorous, like I’m a woman about town, a woman on a mission, a woman with frequent flier miles.

Actually, this trip IS courtesy of my Rapid Rewards account through Southwest. With my loyalty to this airline, I should be Southwest’s mascot. I should be on the cover of Spirit Magazine, with my own monthly column. I would write about all of the reasons that I love Southwest, including the friendly service, non-assigned seating, red and purple airplanes, and Ritz Cracker Cheese Sandwiches.

I would also give advice. People could write in and ask me questions, and I would exude my sage, time-tested wisdom. They could ask about anything.

For example, if someone wrote to me and said,
Annie,
I love amusement parks! They’re so fun. But I have a problem. It’s against the rules to bring a lunch with you – and I don’t want to spend $12 on a corndog. Any ideas?
-Starving at Six Flags

My response – from my own experience, of course – would be,
Dear Starving,
Amusement parks are great! The rollercoasters, the tourists, the frozen lemonade… Here is my tried-and-true process for sneaking in a lunch. Pack your hoagie sandwiches at the bottom of your backpack. Cover them with a sweatshirt. Cover the sweatshirt with about 17 tampons. When you are in the security line, find the most awkward adolescent-looking security guard, and go through his line. He will open your pack and promptly close it without digging.
-Annie

It would be such a successful column! Useful, shrewd, and fun for the whole family. I will ponder this possibility.

In the meantime, I am making sure that Graham gets an authentic Northwest experience. So far,
1) Seafood – check.
2) Coffee – check.
3) Rain – check.

Typically, I try to have some sort of “theme” to my posts: why I hate townhomes, the proper funeral attire, that one time I ripped out all of my eyelashes, etc. But today, I bring you a slapdash assortment of my thoughts.

1) Yesterday, I watched “A Mighty Heart.” It was terrible – and by that, I mean, it was incredibly well-done and well-acted, but an atrocious, true story. I remember when journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and held hostage in Pakistan back in 2002, but it was only a blip on my radar. A story on the news with a tragic ending… now, what am I having for dinner tonight? The actuality that his wife Marianne faced – the simultaneous fear and courage during his absence, the unspeakable horror at being told that he was beheaded, and the grace with which she faced a future without her husband – was absolutely moving. Angelina Jolie nailed the role: delicate, nuanced, and painful.

2) I went to the seafood bar at Whole Foods last night, and chose poorly: a terrible fish soup (made me want to vomit) and the octopus salad (not what I was hoping for at all). It makes me desperately excited for my trip to Seattle in a few weeks… excuse me, Graham – OUR trip! I am dreaming of Ivar’s Salmon House on Lake Union…

3) It is almost Easter, and Lent has passed me by basically without any acknowledgement. Having the season of Lent be such a large reality of my former job and community, I am dumbfounded as to how I never even noticed it this year. I feel like I’ve missed something. I honestly believe that the act of giving something up for 40 days is a refining and enriching process, and I am sad that I didn’t participate. I feel spiritually unprepared for Easter… although that doesn’t change my excited anticipation at the fact that I am seeing these guys this weekend. That’s right, another trip to Kansas. I hope I am awarded “Customer of the Year” in Southwest’s Spirit in-flight magazine.

4) I just painted my nails at my desk. At work. Where I get paid to paint my nails.

Holla!

Last year, when I moved away from Seattle, I gave up a lot.

I know that things weren’t perfect. But in my 7 years in the Emerald City, I established quite a life for myself. Friends who became family. A home that I loved. The opportunity to do music on a regular basis. The knowledge of a city that comes only with time and experience. The feeling that I belonged.

Seattle was home. My little studio in Wallingford was home. The people made it home.

When I moved out of my apartment last June, in the last frantic moments of trying to pack everything up before I had to turn over the keys, I took my canister full of flour and dumped it out into the trash can. I hate to waste anything, but it didn’t make sense to move something like flour along with me; I knew that someday, I would root myself somewhere else, and refill that canister at that time. I hoped for that day – anticipated that that day would someday be a reality.

Fast-forward 8 months to where we are right now. I spent a long time living out of boxes, and even when I moved into my apartment here in Nashville last month, I was without furniture. I have basically had to start over, building a household almost from scratch. This has been a challenge, especially with no budget and no grown-up friends to give me their hand-me-downs. It’s funny what we take for granted…

But it amazes me that no matter how old I get, it still feels good to know that I have parents who will drop everything to help me out. Earlier this week, my mom and dad drove the 9 hours from Kansas City with a truck-load of boxes and furniture, and spent 48 hours whipping my home into shape.

They were rock stars. They hung curtain rods and pictures, and moved in a couch and a bookshelf and a table and chairs, and put my new license plates on the Honda, and took me shopping for some necessities. They loaded up my pantry with soup and salsa and chips, and my freezer with chicken breasts and loaves of bread. They bought toilet paper and allergy medicine and a trash can for my bedroom. And yes: they got me a bag of flour.

As I was transferring the flour from the bag to the canister, I was filled with this strange sort of hope – a feeling that everything was going to be okay. Life is not always going to be stable and comfortable, but no matter how uneasy I feel, I know that it won’t always be that way. Someday I will have flour in the can again.

So while Nashville doesn’t exactly feel like “home” yet, my little apartment does. And it’s amazing how much that buoys my spirit right now.

Thanks, Mom and Dad. Even at 25, it’s times like this when I am so thankful that I’m still just your kid. And I don’t know that I will ever understand your selfless acts and gifts until I’m a parent myself.

This weekend in Seattle has been one of revelations for me.

First of all, I realized that this was the first time in 4 months that I’ve had any idea where in the hell I am. I have spent months glued to MapQuest for directions from point A to point B to point C, back to point A – and this is surprisingly exhausting. It was an unexpected luxury to not have to think when I drove.

Secondly, I am the luckiest girl in the universe to have the friends that I do. I know that everyone likes their friends, but I really, really deeply love my friends. They are diverse and creative and smart. They are passionate and hilarious and kind. They are different ages, from different backgrounds, and amazingly different life situations. But all of them have supported and sustained and loved me for so long and through so many different twists-and-turns, and make me feel unthinkably welcome and wanted and adored. I don’t know what I ever did to deserve such an amazing cheering squad.

Thirdly (or… tertiary), as much as I love Seattle and miss it with my entire being, I am glad that I am doing what I’m doing. It would have been incredibly easy and attractive to have stayed in Seattle forever, but something big is happening in my life right now. I can’t even put words to what it is, but I know that I am following the tug on my spirit, and that it is important and essential that I keep going. I arrived back in Nashville tonight, and while transition is hard, and the unknown is scary, and I have had some deeply lonely and confusing times since I left Seattle, I am confident that this is good. It’s good.

Once again, I leave my life in Seattle, and summoning all of the courage I can, I walk forward into the uncomfortable, terrifying, exhilarating unknown. May we all remember to embrace our adventure, wherever it may lead.