This past Monday, season five of Weeds premiered on Showtime and reminded me of one of my biggest girl crushes – Mary-Louise Parker – who plays the sassy, snappy California soccer mom turned rebellious drug-dealer on the television mega-hit. Beautiful, talented and unafraid to show off her stuff (Parker posed nude in advertisements for the third season in 2007 and appeared naked in a bathtub in the season 4 finale… not bad for 46 years old!), Mary-Louise has come a long way from her hometown of Fort Jackson, South Carolina.

In addition to earning acclaim as Nancy Botwin, Weeds’s pot-pushing, Mexican-border-hopping protagonist, Parker has demonstrated that she is well suited for the stage. In 2001, she won a Tony award for her Broadway performance in Proof (which was then turned into a movie and snatched up by Gwyneth Paltrow), and she received both a Golden Globe and an Emmy for her work in the HBO miniseries Angels in America. MLP added to her Emmy tally, and added a Screen Actors Guild Award to her resume, for her guest performances on seasons three through seven of the political drama, The West Wing.

In 1996, Parker met and began dating heartthrob actor Billy Crudup, who ended the relationship while Parker was seven months pregnant with their son in 2004. He started dating Clare Danes immediately after the breakup, although he maintains that his decision to dump Parker on her pregnant booty had nothing to do with the beautiful blonde actress. Tom Brady, anyone? Since then, Parker has dated Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz, actor-director Timothy Hutton, and Weeds co-star Jeffrey Dean Morgan, to whom she was engaged for a few months in 2008.

Mary-Louise Parker will continue to give hope to horny little potheads (and, um, normal 21-year-olds like myself) through 2010, as Weeds is confirmed to run through then. Perhaps she’ll help lead the efforts to legalize the happy green plant in the US?

“I’m really in favor of legalizing marijuana,” she said after accepting her Golden Globe in 2006. “I don’t think it’s that controversial.”

I’d like to make that journey a little more literal and give you some of my favorite city-specific tunes. Start packing the suitcase, this gypsy’s taking you with her!

1. Is It Safe- Matt Pond PA [let's go swimming in Philly]

2. Pachuca Sunrise- Minus the Bear

3. This Place is a Prison- The Postal Service [watch water "cascade down Puget Sound"]

4. Lubbock or Leave It- Dixie Chicks [take a trip back to Texas]

5. Lights- Journey [see the lights shine in San Fran]

6. Boston- Augustana

7. 8 Mile- Eminem [takes you to his hometown of Detroit]

8. La Cienega Just Smiled- Ryan Adams [takes you on a drive in Los Angeles]

9. Spanish Harlem- Aretha Franklin [takes you to NYC]

…You can also go to “Coney Island” with Deathcab For Cutie

10. Walking in Memphis- Marc Cohn

11. Paris, Tokyo- Lupe Fiasco

12. When in Rome- Nickel Creek

13. Holiday in Spain- Counting Crows

14. Leaving on a Jet Plane- Peter, Paul and Mary