I love beets.  I really, truly love them.  If I see them on a menu, I will choose beets over almost anything else.

My least favorite color is blue.  I don’t hate it, I would just never pick it for anything.  If I were the captain of a kickball team, I would choose red first, and then green like my new curtains, and then maybe teal.  Yellow would be one of my last choices.  But not as last as blue.  Blue would be the last one standing.

My left ring toe – the one next to the pinky toe – is broken.  Or something.  I have a tendency to overreact to physical ailments, so it’s hard to tell – but something is definitely wrong with it.  All of a sudden, it’s gigantic – Elmer Fudd might as well have dropped an anvil on his foot.  The weird thing is that it doesn’t really hurt – but it’s swollen and purple.  I still ran for 40 minutes last night, though.  That probably didn’t help.

When I run, I listen to what I have been told is the “worst running music ever” – mid-90’s country.  I can’t help it.  The songs are so good.  In the 90’s, Nashville still operated by the principle of “the best song wins” – before it became so politicized and exclusive.  So last night, I was all, “Trisha Yearwood?  Patty Loveless?  Blackhawk?  YES PLEASE.”

These days, at least there’s Lori McKenna.

For as stilted and exhausting as it can be to move to a new city, I am reminded of something that I felt a lot of when I first moved to Nashville: potential.  The first days in a new place have a lonely sweetness to them – quiet possibility.  Each person that I meet might wind up being my friend.  Each road I drive down might lead to a surprise.

So.  Denver, ho.

I just wanted to tell you all of these things today.

Was this week my personal pinnacle of pointless blogging, or what?

What happened to all of my gushing emotion, my wretched depression, my rants that get me labeled a “graceless man-basher”?  So far, December has been a tame and doltish month here on ye olde blog.

Today, I could make up for lost time, and try to redeem my reputation as an overly-emotive sap/jerk – but guys, it’s Friday.  It’s quitting time.  It’s 5 o’clock somewhere.  Let’s keep things light, let’s keep things loose.

I bring to you… THE BEST PICTURE EVER.

Why is this picture so awesome?  Is it my long, luxurious locks?  My effortless, casual smile?  My eyes pretending to stare at something that probably wasn’t there?

No.  What makes this picture awesome is my hand up in my hair, all nonchalant… and disturbingly, looking like a gremlin claw-arm growing out of my head.

I am SO SORRY for wasting your time.  It was either this, or a tirade about how Laughing Cow has started packaging their cheese in cubes rather than wedges.  In other words… you’re welcome.

Next week’s Christmas parties:

• Sunday night
• Monday night
• Tuesday night
• Wednesday night
• Thursday night
• Friday night
• Saturday night

All I want for Christmas:

• Big, cheapo gold hoop earrings (so I can look fly)
• Earbuds that hook over my ears (to wear when I run all by my lonesome)
• A new guitar capo (someone stole mine from my room)
• A very small box for my three tiny Christmas presents

Things I will miss about Nashville:

• The JAM House
• City Church
• East Nasty
• The Bluebird Café
• “Lost” nights with friends

Things I am glad I am not:

• Kidney stone passer
• Road-kill scraper
• Junior higher

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.

Last night, I dreamed that I was driving a logging truck in an ice storm – storms aside, I am fairly certain that truck-driving would be my ideal vocation.  When I finally arrived home in Montrose, Colorado, safe and sound, someone knocked on my door.  I opened it to find a man standing in the swirling snow; he told me that he built his own boat, and he really thought I should come see it.

“But – I’m not wearing any makeup!” I protested.

“You look beautiful,” he said.

“But – I don’t have any shoes!” I challenged.

“That’s okay – I brought you these.”  He pulled out high-heeled leather boots, lined with sheep’s wool.  They were his mother’s.  They were size 6 ½.

He won me over.  What can I say – it doesn’t take much.

- – - – - – - -

This week, I promise to write about the following things:
-    “Friday Night Lights”
-    My 10-year high school reunion
-    How a doorknob reminded me that God loves me

I’m not feeling many words these days.  Obviously.

But I will say GOOD LUCK to my friends Joey and Stephanie who are both taking the bar exam starting today.  Rock it like it’s your job until it IS your job.

A few months ago, PZC taught me about auto antonyms – although I think that I prefer their less-popular name, contronyms.  Any non-word-lovers out there can just call them self-contradictions (but I will judge you).

What is an auto antonym?  It’s a word that can mean the opposite of itself.

IMPOSSIBLE, you say.

NOT WITH JESUS, I say.

Or, just, it’s not impossible.  Because it’s truth.  Look at this whole list of auto antonyms I found – and tell me that you aren’t captivated.  I mean, SOMEONE besides Pauly and me must find this word-nerdage fascinating?

Words!  That mean one thing!  AND!  The total opposite thing!  Auto antonyms are the “choose your own adventure” of vocabulary.

The next time someone calls me lurid, I’m giving him a kiss on the lips.*

*not a promise.

Before getting roommates this past December, I lived alone for 5 years.  I cannot remember a time that I was ever scared to live by myself.  But last night, I started to wonder… why?

I’m still house-sitting, and when it was close to midnight and I was in bed working on the computer, one of the dogs sat straight up and started growling.  He made his way to the doorway to the hall, and then started barking ferociously.

I knew that someone was in the house.

I knew that he was coming down the hall.

I knew that I should have made Charlton Heston my president.

I sat there frozen as Lucky the dog ran down the hall and out to the living room.  Then everything fell silent.

That’s when I got TERRIFIED.

Because I started hearing whispers – like the smoke monster from “Lost.”  So not only is there someone in the house, but he is a Jedi of canines, and is putting Lucky into a trance, and if he can do that to a yellow Lab, then what can he do to me?  I’m going to wind up with a tracking device injected into my neck, brainwashed, telling people that my name is Kiki Van Alsteen and assassinating foreign officials.

But instead of finding myself a weapon and going on a man-hunt, I told myself that I was crazy, and turned out the light.  And fell asleep completely petrified – like, blankets-pulled-up-to-my-chin, eyes-squeezed-shut, peeing-my-pants scared.

Can you say “avoidance”?

This morning, I forgot that I had to go to work.  I was in the middle of a dream that Taylor Swift was holding her CD release party at my old Music Row apartment, and thousands of people were lined up on the sidewalk outside my home (I was going to make them take off their shoes at the door).  My alarm kept going off, but I guess that I kept snoozing, because when the dream reached a crescendo and the other Annie had won a lunch at P.F. Changs with Taylor Swift herself, I was already a half an hour late for work.

But none of that is important.  Behold!  Today, I have a video.

Warning: I may have discovered sound effects.

I know.  Get excited.

Productivity and Boredom from Annie Parsons on Vimeo.

You know how sometimes, a long-forgotten memory will make its way to the surface for no apparent reason?  All of a sudden, the scene is playing in your mind – like a film projector on an old bed sheet, nostalgic home video remembrances of life before you knew the things you know now.

The other day, that was happening for me.  I was seeing our Dalmatian, Princess, and games on what must have been the original Apple computer, and Otter Pops from the freezer in the garage, and the orange tree in our old backyard, and trips to the Dairy Queen on our bikes, and summer nights in the backyard, and getting beaten up by the deaf girl in 1st grade…

WAIT A SECOND.

It totally threw a wrench in my gears, a hitch in my giddy-up.  I was beaten up?  In 1st grade?  By the deaf girl?

(Let it be known that these days, I would absolutely, 100% use the term “hearing impaired.”  But remember, I am being transported back to 1989, when I didn’t know anything about being politically correct.  I also didn’t know that you shouldn’t swallow toothpaste – but I digress.)

The last time I checked, I do not have multiple personalities… yet… and so I’m not quite sure how this memory got repressed for all these years only to surface two decades later.  But just like that, in the middle of my work-day, I was transported back to recess in 1st grade, on the playground at Oster Elementary, scared every single day that the deaf girl from 2nd grade was going to beat me up again.

She had pigtails.  She had hearing aids.  And she had it out for me.

I never got up the nerve to tell anyone.  I just went on being afraid every day.  And I don’t know that I’ve ever been so relieved as the day when a playground aid caught the little shrew in the act, and made sure she never touched me again.

Hey, if I was forced to re-live this story, then you can be sure that I would subject you to it, too.  What else is a blog audience for?

And two more nubbins:
-    I fly to Seattle tonight.
-    My East Nasty of the Week column will be resurrected next week.

Yesterday, I worked Ye Olde Temp Job until about 3:30, and as I was walking out to my car, I thought to myself, “Tut tut, looks like rain.”  I was wearing a white button-down shirt, and decided against a stop at the grocery store, because what if it rains?  And my shirt becomes see-through?  Kroger is not ready for that.

Harris Teeter, perhaps – since they have already seen other things.

But not Kroger.  The little lambs.

So I drove home.  And as I did, the thunder and lightning began.  I had the distinct thought, “What if I am struck by lightning today?”  That morning when I woke up, I didn’t think this shall be the day that I shall be struck by lightning – but I bet every person who has ever been struck by lightning would say the same thing.  I totally freaked myself out.

There were tornados in Nashville yesterday.  I’ve never lived in a place with tornados before, so I don’t really have any idea what the protocol is.  Go to the basement, I suppose?  Except our basement floods when it rains.  And I have visions of being like Leo in “Titanic,” chained to a pipe in a lower-level holding room, trapped as the water rises higher and higher… and I CAN’T GO UPSTAIRS BECAUSE I WILL DIE BY TORNADO.

But… well.  It was totally fine.  I am alive.  I never saw a tornado.  Wasn’t struck by lightning.  Didn’t drown.

Guys.  Sometimes I just like to write dramatically about minuscule, harmless, meaningless details of my day.