Annie Parsons

This weekend, something that I wanted to work out didn’t work out, leaving me sad and disappointed. Then my bike seat broke. Then I tried to fix my bathtub drain, but realized I don’t have the right tools. Then several people told me, in various ways, that a dream that I’ve been working toward is…

I am the girl who balances her checkbook. Makes her bed every day. Drives the speed limit. Plans in advance. Goes to bed at a decent hour. Projects ahead so the future will never take her by surprise. Always has a responsible amount of gas in the tank of her car. This is what’s known…

This week, work has had me ping-ponging around the nation (and thus, ping-ponging around in the otherwise vacant warehouse known as “my head” – watch out for raccoons!). I needed to be in Minneapolis for meetings followed by Anaheim for a trade show, and all of that travel was going to equal 7 days. Fine,…

I’ve heard it said that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches of this planet. And while we obviously can’t count either (trust me, I’ve done some very official Internet Research), I think that the point is that the universe is startlingly, overwhelmingly, mind-bogglingly gigantic – which…

There are seasons when life feels overwhelming, like my brain has too many tabs open. I jump from one page to the next trying to figure out what to focus on, and with each change in visual, I forget what I was looking at before. Last night, I walked Foxy to the dog park in…

The moment I opened the door, I knew. The air was different. I just knew. Throwing my purse and lunch bag to the couch, I made a beeline for her kennel, calling her name as I went. “Foxy? Foxy, are you okay?” I was sure of what I would find when I got to her,…

“At a certain point in your life, probably when too much of it has gone by, you will open your eyes and see yourself for who you are, especially for everything that made you so different from all the awful normals. And you will say to yourself, ‘But I am this person.’ And in that…

I’ve been thinking a lot about adventure. So many of us crave it – but what is it, actually? Is it doing something crazy – quitting your job and selling everything you own and taking off for parts unknown? Is it doing something risky – hanging from cliffs and diving out of planes and willingly…

Just the other day, I was reminiscing with my mom about 2011 (i.e. The Worst Year Ever) – and while she said that she has blocked out a lot of those memories, to me they’re still vivid, still shocking. Cynthia Monahon calls trauma “the occurrence of the unthinkable,” and if we’re using that definition, 2011…

Greetings from my pit of convalescence. On Monday, I came down with a bout of the Mighty Influenza, and while I’m mostly back to normal now, I still can’t breathe all the way to the bottom of my lungs. My house is littered with dirty dishes, blankets, dog toys, and tissues that as soon as…