Chicago, IL

Surprise!  It’s me again – She Gone Girl.  Or as my sister affectionately calls me ‘She Still Here Girl’.

We’ve already covered most of the travel basics in ‘Quit or Get Off the Pot’ but before we go any further in this courtship (and before I jet off across the world), I’d like to take a page outta Paula Abdul’s playbook and bring us one step back.  Let’s discuss what you should, and should not, expect from this blog.

This will not be your typical travel blog.

First off, aesthetics.

If you’re looking for GORGEous staged photographs of someone wistfully wandering through fields of lavender wearing a strapless floral romper and this season’s latest leather tote, that’s not me.  I won’t have a fancy camera, the proper lighting equipment, OR the time to crimp my bangs.

My style has always oscillated somewhere between ‘disheveled chic’ and ‘prefers sweatpants’.  Sadly, I have zero fashion sense, zero floppy hats in my ensemble, and zero professional photography skills even if I did.  Get ready for endless pics of me squinting into the sun with full-on triple chin because I hate taking selfies and have refused to learn my good angles.

Will I have flawless manicures and salon-ready hair?  Nope.  Multi-palette contour kits to smoothly transition from day to night?  No, again.  ADORable puns to match the ADORable bites I take out of ADORable sandwiches?  No, sir.  (And for the record, no one has ever described my eating as adorable………. probably because I have a goatee of garlic aioli at all times.)  Itty-bitty bikinis in sheepish yet effortlessly-cool poses on the beach?  A.) I’ve been rocking one pieces since 2008 and B.) my coolness peaked at age 5.

Finally, don’t expect any awe-inspiring or sweeping aerial shots because I don’t own, or have access to, a drone (or helicopter).  Side note: if any of my friends intend to buy a drone (or helicopter) in the next few years, please use it to deliver me an extra-large, thin crust, fully-loaded, fly-through-the-sky pizza pie for my birthday.  Extra giardiniera.  (And extra garlic sauce for my goatee.)

Form and Function

Shockingly (I know), I don’t have an English degree.  Beautiful sentence structure and correct grammar, beware.  I specialize in run-on sentences, conversational flows and the HEAVY reuse of my favorite words & phrases.  If you foresee this to be an issue, please tell me now; I’ll pack a thesaurus in place of malaria meds and my solar charger.

One part how to and two parts why not, this blog will not only provide you a detailed account of what not to WEAR, I’ll also throw in entire segments of what not to DO.  Liiiiiiiiiike, fall down a mountain wearing a Beetlejuice costume – hasn’t happened yet, but definitely in the realm of possibilities…

Think LESS in-depth travel guides of EVERYthing you can see and do in certain countries (’10 Travel Lipsticks that Work Great in a Pinch!’), and MORE bumbling through each day, making mistakes so you don’t have to (‘5 Noodle Bowls Under $2 That Won’t Give You Diarrhea!’)!  I simply can’t sample every sausage, cider, scallop, or spumoni and I won’t ever pretend to have all the answers.

Keepin’ it real – down to the last stubbed toe.  Stick with me, kid, and you might just learn something (’13 Ways to Crop Dust an Airplane!’).

The Meat

As mentioned in the first post, I’ll be stringing together various volunteer & workaway opportunities the entire time I’m traveling.  Which means that the bulk of the blog will be about the jobs I’m working (teaching in orphanages, cleaning up post-disaster areas, building schools, bartending, learning the basics of falconry), the people I’m working with (who are taking me in and providing three square meals a day), and the unmissable festivals and roadside attractions along the way (bonus!).

Thank you, Paris & Nicole, for leading the odd job train, however temporarily, across America.  If not for The Simple Life showing me that yes I CAN try to mop the house on a segway……. or try to pay my tolls in gum……. I might never have had the courage to experiment with my own odd job train across the eastern hemisphere.

Finally, Let’s Wrap Up with Good Old-Fashioned FEAR

At this stage in the planning process, there are a lot of legitimate things I should be worried about.  Health & safety, emotional distress, navigational mishaps, money management, blah blah blah……. but honest engines, the only things I’m truly concerned about are:

• Staying in one piece
• Cultural slurping habits
• Bugs

My deepest fear is not that I am inadequate.  My deepest fear is that I’m covered in bugs and have no arms to swat them away.  When I picture Hell, it’s an Arachnophobia / 28 Days Later mashup where a new species of super-fast, super-aggressive JUNGLE BUG is coming from every direction and SPRINTING AFTER ME.  Needless to say, please pray someone will come along and save me……. because I. Cannot. Save. Myself.

Seeing as high-intensity, cacophonous mass slurping needs no explanation, let’s skip right to ‘staying in one piece’ while on the road.

To say I’m accident-prone is a gross understatement.  My body is like a connect-the-dots story of my life.

Did I staple my own finger yesterday?  Yes, I did.  Did I lose my phone in a Dublin bar on day TWO of a 24-day trip to four different countries last year?  Yes, I did.  (Pretty sure it was AFTER my friends and I used a fire escape to leave a crowded sports bar and BEFORE that gay guy baseball-slid through my legs on the dance floor.)

Just last month, I had a french fry incident that could have caused a five-car pileup on the highway.  You see, what happened was……. on my commute home, as I was enjoying a tasty snack shoving piping hot french fries down my throat, one fry tumbled out of my hand and into the pit of despair – the place between the driver’s seat & car door.  Raised never to leave a man behind (especially since I’ll forget that man exists until the day I sell my car), I SHOVED my entire left arm down there in a valiant rescue attempt.  Everything was going so welllllll until I realized I couldn’t bring my arm back up.  Could not.  Budge the arm.  At.  All.

Forehead pressed up against the bottom of the driver’s side window, eyeballs barely clearing the top of the steering wheel, speedometer at an easy 70mph……I realized I was 100% fucked stuck.  Frantic, I yanked and I yanked and I YANKED AND I YANKED and I kept yanking with every inch of my strength until my nice, leather watch FLUNG off my wrist and flew through the air.

Ugh, don’t you HATE it when you trap your own arm underneath the driver’s seat while you’re driving?!

And then to add insult to an already-bruised arm, I had to pay Mr. Fast Fix $8.45 at the mall to reconnect the pieces of my mangled watch.  This is why I can’t have nice things.

What’s the Worst That Could Happen?

OK, so there are a million things that could go wrong as I gallivant around the world on my Eat Pray Love (minus the Pray & Love) cover tour.  I get that.  100%.  Mistakes are a given and I’ll make plenty.

But what did I learn when my friends dared me to eat an entire grande meal at Taco Bell?  THAT I CAN GET THROUGH ANYTHING.

(Disclaimer: I may have dared myself.  But, it was college.  And Taco Bell soft shells are, like, so tiny.)

In addition to being smart, alert, and as safe as humanly possible, I must admit that the love from my family and friends sustains me, giving me the confidence I need to walk through the world with head held high.  PLUS, I have an ace of spades in my back pocket.  An emergency-only safety hatch.  A guardian angel watching over me.

No, Liam Neeson wasn’t available for a one-year retainer deal (and his agent rudely returned NONE of my calls) but I’VE got the next best thing.  I’ve got Dani Malloy in my corner and she’ll CUT a bitch if it means saving my life.  Ba-lee dat.

My Mom (Dani, Dani Malloy) is a badass mother hen who believes in three things: putting Kleenex in every pocket of every jacket, covering up the taste of steak with a pile of ketchup, and going to the ends of the earth to protect her children.

Not that I’ll ever need her particular set of skills (acquired over a long career of mothering someone who’s had more than one french fry incident) ………. but just knowing she’s out there, one WhatsApp away, makes me feel at ease with this entire life transition.

May you all have a Liam, or Dani, in your corner.  That is my one wish.

Until next time.