Before we begin . . .

TODAY'S QUESTION FOR COMMENTING: When was the last book you read? Chime in after today's post! - Erin

There are these things I do on occasion. They're impossible to categorize, except that they are unplanned and culminate with hysterical laughter from my girlfriends and an inquisition into my sanity from everyone else. I call these events "Pulling an Erin."

On a small scale, I'm thinking of the time, years ago, when I stopped at a fancy furniture store in downtown Austin and ended up asking to use the phone in a fake British (possibly Scottish) accent. On a larger scale, I'm thinking of the time when I decided to research a new friend from Northwestern University via the web (bear in mind, this was long before "Google" was considered a verb). After clicking just a few links, I determined my friend was a fascinating individual -- a part-Asian, part-Anglo rollerderby enthusiast who had studied at a prestigious Chicago science academy and even had an identical twin brother attending NU as well. Unbeknownst to my friend, for several days in 1997 our interactions revolved entirely around this database of knowledge I'd clandestinely amassed. The problem was: absolutely none of it was true. The fact that he didn't look remotely Asian and never wore rollerskates should have tipped me off. It didn't. Nor did the fact that his name turned out to be Phil and not Tedd as I believed (yes, with two Ds, that's what the Internet told me!), although it did hammer home the point that I didn't actually know this guy very well. In the end, the whole thing blew up in my face in a much more entertaining way, involving the revelation of something that was actually, shockingly true -- that for some reason both of us considered our favorite words to be "pants" and "corn." There are a thousand other freakish details to this story, and I will certainly write about it all here sometime soon.

For today, the critical point is that for 10 years, the "faux-Asian non-twin story" has been the standard by which all "Pulling an Erin" events are judged. But now I am forced to admit something scary: that a new contender has emerged. I can scarcely believe it myself, but it's true. This week I uncovered my typed diary from a 24-hour-period in July 2005. I was spending 6 weeks in Chicago, hanging with my husband and trying to churn out a memoir about, among other things, the fact that I am just a silly, spastic kid in adult's clothing. Of course, in the book I mean that metaphorically. But in the diary you're about to read, it's almost literal. Things started sanely enough, with a case of good timing and the love of a good book. They ended with me masquerading as a teenager, stowing away in Chicago's famed Harold Washington Library, and questioning the very meaning of being a grown-up. You'll see. . . .