Before I begin, let’s all just take a minute to acknowledge the huge thing that happened yesterday.  The thing that made the world feel small – like everyone, no matter what culture, tribe, or tongue, agreed was a big event.  An incident that shook us out of our day-to-day reality, and made us think about what is really important in life.  A happening resulting in headlines, workplace chatter, and blog posts.

ERIN GOT A NEW HAIRCUT!!!!

And she looks fab.  Give her a cat-call, a high-five, and – my own personal favorite display of affection – a quick palm-circle-rub on the back.

In other news, there are a few things that I’ve decided that I “need”: a pair of black heels (how do I not own a pair of black heels?), a soft case for my guitar, and a new [insert the engine part that keeps my car quiet and not shaky] in my Honda.

Instead, you want to know what I’ve been doing with my hard-earned cash?  Donating it to This American Life.  Only twice, but still.  Shouldn’t I be allocating my limited funds some place other than to what could be a FREE podcast?  I feel like I am telling you my secret shame – confessing something I shouldn’t – like how I feign a healthy diet only to shovel cupcake icing into my mouth when no one is watching.

But I can’t help it.  Ira Glass is my geek crush.  He tells me the best stories out of anyone.  And then he asks me to give money (“One dollar – five dollars – whatever you can spare.  What kind of person do you want to be – someone who contributes, or someone who sits back and assumes someone else will take care of it?  Do your part, so we can do ours.”), and I’m like, IRA I WILL DO ANYTHING.

Seriously, though.  What a guy.

I have this friend named Juliette.

We met through the internet.

I’ve met some of my favorite friends through the internet.  Here is a sampling.

Whoa.  If it’s possible to meet such attractive women through the internet, could I meet attractive guys?  Why have I not signed up for eHarmony?

Anyway, this story is not about them.

It’s about her.

Juliette lives here in Nashville – well, Franklin, to be exact.

Franklin is where I did this.

(I know, it always has to be about me.)

BACK to her.

She’s wonderful.  In my year and a half in Nashville, we’ve only hung out a handful of times, but she’s one of those people that you kind of wish you could hate but you can’t help but love – because she’s all these fabulous things like beautiful and creative and hilarious and talented and kind and really smart.

She makes this look cool.

The week that I lost my job, she treated me to wine & cheese at Rumours.

IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW, that is the way to my heart.  That, and foot rubs.  And men with good scruff.  (Clarification: Juliette did not give me a foot rub, nor does she have scruff.)

But guess who does?

HER NEW FIANCE, TODD!!!!!!!

The girl is engaged.

And I am so, so excited for her.  She deserves the best guy ever.  And it sounds like Todd is.

I hope that through the various activities that surround weddings, I will be meeting Val and Dani and Joey soon.

(If you’re wondering what Joey looks like, well.  He no longer believes in Facebook.  Probably because internet strangers like me would go in and steal his pictures and post them on their blog.

But I have it on good authority that he looks exactly like this guy.)

I know Val, Dani, and Joey through the internet, too – although I’ve never met them.  They’re some of Juliette’s best friends.  I hope they will adopt me.

Sometimes, against all odds, people find each other.  WE find each other.  Congratulations, Julie-girl and Todd – and thanks to all of you internet people who have turned out to be awesome in real life, too.

Plastic bags
I have a confession: I’ve forgotten my canvas bag TWICE. Both times, I slunk out of Harris Teeter (oh yeah, did I tell you that the grocery here is called Harris Teeter? Ironically, it was the site of this smudge on my dignity), stealthily surveying the parking lot for any blog readers who might catch me with the plastic bag contraband in my hands. Once safe in my car, I leaned my head against the steering wheel, counted my lucky stars, and then prayed that God would heal the earth of global warming.

Otherwise, it’s steady on with my mission to save the planet.

The weather
Oh my word. I am in heaven. I am Miss Congeniality. I am Maria Von Trapp. I am a Disney princess whose hair is braided every morning by cartoon birds. October has always been my favorite month, and I am happy to report that there is no geographic chauvinism involved when it comes to autumn: October comes through in Nashville just as it comes through in Seattle. Praise be.

Dan Evans
What can I say? The man is totally redeeming his name!

After contacting him via MySpace with a quick note saying, “Hey, I’m the girl whose TINY car was clobbered by your GIGANTIC bus,” I received the sweetest, most apologetic message in response. He graciously offered to cover any damage, and even had some very kind words about my songs. I wrote him back saying, “It ain’t no thang,” asked for a free CD, and said that when he’s back in Nashville we’ll go for a beer.

And so, in about two weeks, we will be real-life friends.

Thus ends any Dan Evans smack-talk. I won’t have it. He’s won me over!

This weekend
This afternoon, I am rushing off to fly to Kansas City for the weekend. I have 3 Southwest drink tickets, and will be sharing with two friends of mine who are booked on the same flight. I will probably not have the chance to blog tomorrow, since the three of us will be otherwise occupied doing something that is currently non-bloggable. But should a day come when it IS bloggable: oh sweet mercy, it’s going to be good.

But maybe… just maybe… tune in over the weekend. I’m hanging out with my nephews, which typically instigates some sort of hilarity.

From 2002 until 2005, I was Annie the Nanny for two little boys in Seattle. The first year was a full-time job, and the next two were part-time as I finished school. These little guys were my funny companions, my paper airplane playmates, the reason that I wanted to pull my hair out and the reason that my heart spilled over with love. Even after I finished my stint as their nanny, I continued to see them about once each week. Now that I’m in Nashville, I miss them a lot.

One of their favorite treats was to be told stories – stories made up on the fly, extemporaneously, in real time, with virtually no prep.

Ready, go.

In fact, my very first day on the job, it was requested of me to tell a story that integrated the lives of a Red-Tailed Hawk, a Black Widow Spider, and a Hyena. Welcome.

I found that, when telling stories about fictional characters in fantastical scenarios, my mind would tend to go blank, and then I would scramble. Put on the spot, my best character names were drawn directly from prescription drugs: “Captain… Zoloft, and his flunky… Prednisone!” In order to avoid the inevitable panic that would set in on the days when I had absolutely no creative spark, I began to build upon two series of stories; it was easier to make up something on the fly when I had already developed some characters to draw from.

My first series: “Crabs on the Loose.”

It was not about an STD.

My second series: “Annie Queen of Doom.”

“Annie Queen of Doom” starred myself, naturally – cloaked in a black cape and wearing excessive amounts of eyeliner – and two Komodo dragons, named after the boys. These illustrious characters lived on Mt. Distromotry (a fictional term which, very technically, translates to “acid mixed with lava”), next to the Bog of Eternal Stench, where they often battled Emperor Badbum. Emperor Badbum was constantly after the Rainbow Sapphire, buried deep within the bowels of Mt. Distromotry, and so our heroes were always on guard. He was a terrible enemy, but he had one weakness: crying babies. And so when Annie Queen of Doom and her Komodo dragons would march into battle, they would push trams full of wailing infants.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to my creativity.

All day, the clock has ticked on. And all day, I have frantically thought, “What can I blog about?” Some days are just like that – nothing in particular that strikes my mind. Other days, I write 4 or 5 entries, and store them up for days like today.

But I’m out of those entries.

And so, as the clock is approaching midnight, and I want to have a blog posted before Monday is over, I reach back in the far recesses of my mind to bring you this gem. It has nothing to do with today. It has nothing to do with anything I have experienced recently. It is simply a story that I should share, if for no other reason than it is horrifying.

When I was a junior in high school, I went to prom with sweet Dylan Schoo. (That is not the horrifying part.) We stayed up all night with our friends, watching movies and talking and laughing, and the next morning, his mom made breakfast for all of us. Then, I went to church, and stayed up all Sunday long. When I finally crashed into bed on Sunday night, I was exhausted. So naturally, I overslept on Monday morning.

The alarm went off; I was late for school. I jumped out of bed, and frantically threw on clothes. I sat at my mirror, quickly applying makeup, making sure that my eyeliner was extra dark to hide my tired eyes. Though it didn’t make sense, as I was already running behind, I decided to take the extra second to use that pesky contraption called the “eyelash curler.”

I am not a frequent user of the eyelash curler. In fact, I think it’s quite silly. It’s the kind of apparatus that men will sit around a campfire debating its actual existence – as in, the men who live with women against the men who do not. A small metal clamp that women place against their eyelid, thus curling their eyelashes? Who knew?

But on that fateful morning, I clamped.

I clamped hard.

I clamped so hard that when my elbow slipped off of the desk, I ripped every last eyelash from my right eyelid.

If you are wincing as you are reading this, YES, IT HURT THAT BAD. The pain was intense, but it did not hold a candle to the alarm I felt when I opened my eyes and saw the eyelash curler still clenching every single one of my eyelashes. In my hand. Detached from my face.

There were tears. There was panic. There was absolute frenzied hysteria. In fact, I got in my truck and drove straight to the church where my mom was in a prayer meeting. I marched in and interrupted these ladies’ communion with the Lord because I’M SORRY BUT THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT.

I wore fake eyelashes for 3 months, until the real ones grew back.

The end.

January was a great run, in terms of blogs. Check it out – 28 posts! That is by far my highest record to date. I’m glad that you’re reading. I like you. Thanks for continually checking in and following along in the adventure that is my life.

It’s funny: I have always been a person who is a planner. I plan for my day, my week, my month, my year. I plan financially. I plan what I’m going to eat. I plan in order to reach my goals. I even plan when I’m going to shower – yes, I write it in my calendar.

But this is the first time in my life where there has been no plan. My story is not even sketched out – it is being written, day by day. In all areas, my life, rather than playing out in a very “scripted” and “planned for” way, is simply unfolding. I have absolutely no idea what is going on.

But as my friend George recently reminded me, we can only experience God in this present moment. Yes, he is the God of the past, and yes, he is the God of the future. He is omnipresent; we can look to the past and recognize his faithfulness, and look to the future with faith. But the only place that we can truly experience him is right now. So I am dwelling in that truth, and just being. I am existing with this weird contentment, anticipation, and excitement.

Today is a big day. Something is unfolding right now – something that I didn’t plan for or dream up. It’s crazy and insane and bizarre and exciting. Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime. But until then, I need to go pack a bag and head out of town. Something is happening.

Highlight #1
The best moment of the Parsonspalooza Christmas Extravaganza happened when Becca and Sarah were both given small, identical gifts to open. They were obviously gift cards – nothing else is shaped like that – except credit cards, I guess, and business cards, and the lid of an Altoids tin, and I suppose a thin, thin calculator.

Becca opened hers: a gift card bearing a substantial amount to the Plaza, a shopping area in downtown Kansas City. We knew that Sarah would receive the same type of card.

Only, it’s… what is it?… $5 to Chick-Fil-A!

You should have seen her face. She was trying SO HARD to be excited. But she was so confused. Becca gets the Plaza, and I get $5 to Chick-Fil-A? Don’t get me wrong – Sarah loves Chick-Fil-A, but…?

It turns out that Mom and Dad had wrapped up the wrong card. I’m so glad that it happened. I hadn’t laughed that hard since Michael Scott “declared” bankruptcy.

Highlight #2
Speaking of gift cards, I received the all-time greatest gift card for Christmas. $15 to Starbucks.

Starbucks? you ask? Doesn’t Annie loathe Starbucks?

Why, yes, of course I do. But this was no ordinary Starbucks card. Look:

This is my own, personal, customized Starbucks card, designed for me online by my sister-in-law Ashley to commemorate this day. I will never throw this away, not even after I’ve exhausted every penny on my Venti, single-bag, Wild Sweet Orange teas.

Highlight #3
Yesterday, a tall, charmingly-scruffy man showed up on my doorstep to take me to lunch. How could I be so lucky? Joel, my friend from my Colorado days, is on furlough from his Peace Core post in Burkina Faso, Africa, and is visiting extended family in the Kansas City area. Our mutual timing in the KC area was serendipitous, and so we took advantage of our one day of overlap to catch up.

Joel has amazing stories about life in a country that many people don’t even know exists. He lives in an honest-to-goodness hut in a real-live village, braves 117 degree weather, takes bucket showers, and bucks the Burkina norm by not using physical abuse as a disciplinary tool in the classroom. His blogs transplant me to a foreign place of which I know nothing, and I highly recommend the reading.

We had a wonderful time catching up, even though we ate at a mediocre soup/salad/sandwich place in Brookside. Out of all of the options for good food in Kansas City, we somehow picked the ultimate loser. But the conversation was nourishing and life-giving and smile-generating, and I am grateful.

- – - – - – - -

This morning, the Parsons drive to south-central Colorado to stay with our friends the Claders in a cabin in the mountains for the week. I will be removed from society and, most likely, the internet. In the event that I cannot post blogs, never fear: I promise to write a few posts while at the cabin, and post them when I return. I mean, really: 10 people and a bunch of dogs, holed up together in the woods, far from any semblance of civilization, in -12 degree weather, with nothing to do but SURVIVE?

You know I’ll have stories.

[Attention: if you have not finished the Harry Potter series, don’t worry. There are NO PLOT SPOILERS in this blog. Read on, my readers. Read on.]

I just finished “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” which, if you’ve been living under a rock, is the seventh and final book of the Harry Potter series. The book came out in July, and because of life circumstances, I didn’t have the chance to read it until now. Somehow, I miraculously (or… magically…) made it until now without having the ending spoiled, but I began to realize that I was pushing my luck.

It became a race against time – I didn’t tell anyone what I was reading for fear that they might give away the ending. I snuck onto the plane to Richland on Tuesday, and as covertly as I could, slid the HUGE, HULKING volume from my bag, trying to block the title from everyone around me to avoid a plot-spoiling comment.

I have spent the past few nights lying awake in bed for hours and hours, turning pages and savoring each image. Each time that a chapter would come to a close, I would think, “Just one more.” This continued until my eyes saw spots and drooped unwittingly. And then, when I would wake up in the morning, before even brushing my teeth, I would simply roll over and open the book again.

And yes, I made it to the end of the book having maintained the surprise.

The ending of a series has always felt like a death to me. When I finished “Lord of the Rings,” I sat quietly in my little armchair for what felt like an eternity, just staring at the blank page at the end. A good story brings characters to life, and they become close companions. A poignant tale can delineate my thoughts, and punctuate my emotions. I am not ready to give up Harry and Hermione and Ron and the rest, just like I was not ready to give up Peter, Susan, Edmond, and Lucy.

I feel sad. When a family member dies, we have the promise of seeing them someday in heaven. Maybe it’s silly, but I wish I could see the Hogwarts crowd in heaven, too.