She Gone Girl: The Sequel

Chicago, USA & Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Buckle up and get ready… cuz it’s SHOWTIME, folks.

She Gone Girl is, officially, gone again.  This time: even goner.  Or, I guess, geographically-speaking, she’s closer than ever before so maybe not so much her physical location but let’s focus on the DAMN!  She Gone.

The long-awaited sequel (and ascension of me from my parents’ couch) has finally come.  Reprising my role as Taylor Malloy: Dancetrotter & Globesetter, this sequel promises to be bigger… better… and more polished in every way.  (JK. Set expectations somewhere around Speed 2: Cruise Control.  Or, better yet, Mannequin Two: On the Move.  Cuz sure, Hollywood Montrose is back with his scissor-sharp sunglasses & flair de la arteest, but nothing can stop us now can top the sheer magic of that first Kim Cattrall & Andrew McCarthy window display love affair.)

although, mannequins on the move = usually a good idea

After hibernating in my parents’ house for the past 2 months, I’m pasty, pudgy and short of breath.

Understandable, since all I’ve done is sleep in, eat out, watch movies, and go to a Japanese-themed game show with my friends.  Fun fact!  If all you eat for 2 months is pizza, ice cream, guacamole and gummy worms (and you fail to move your body even once), you WILL gain 15 pounds.  In case you didn’t know… I, umm, did the research for you.

step, turn, ‘GUACAMOLE! GUACAMOLE!’ aaaaaand flip

Being home was an absolute treat.  Highlights included: seeing my friends’ new baby nuggets, staring at those baby nuggets and not knowing what to do with my face, spending quality time with my parents, eating free pancakes at an art show, sponsoring my nephew PER PAGE in a read-a-thon not knowing he’d devour five 500-page books, and lavishing in not one, but two spa days.

One with my sister…… where we floated around in ultra-plush robes at this fancy pants spa in Santa Monica…… making sure to sample all 10 infused waters, teas and lemonades and treating ourselves to organic age-defying apricot soufflé antioxidant pumpkin peels, with peptide/tea tree skin boosters that glided on like buttah.

It felt like…… you know when the bad guy in Terminator 2 morphs into a silky-smooth metallic puddle?  Just like that.  On my face.  Except instead of stabbing me with an arm-blade replica of the Washington Monument, this puddle’s end game was melting the skin off my face.  ‘What’s that smell?  Is that my burning flesh cinnamon, pumpkin spice or both!?’

The other spa day was with my dad…… where we enjoyed his and hers massages at a 24-hour Korean sauna.

HIS with a sweet, old lady who worked out his kinks.  Mine with a middle-aged man that tried, for a full hour, to push all the air out of my body.  Pressssssssing down on my back, continuing long past exhalation, I had a 1.8 second window to scramble for air before shit here comes the next pressssssss.  All in all, not as relaxing of a day as I’d planned.  And no thank you, sir, I don’t want any of your natural skin care products.  I’m in a committed relationship with the Walgreens beauty aisle.  #flawless

#walgreens #sideboob

Operation: Travel the World & Spend All My Money.  Take two.  The world is my oyster and I’m ready to shuck the crap out of it.  Who’s with me?  (And who wants to change that expression?  Why does the world have to be so frickin’ hard to open?  Can’t it be a book or a bag or a loaf of bread?  One little twist tie and boop!  Anyway, where was I?)

Ah, yes.  My namesake finally makes sense again.  Back on the road and back to thumbing through 4-6 different currencies in my wallet.  Back to whipping my head around every time I hear the English language (because of course they’re talking to me).  Back to affordable health care and paying $6 to see a doctor, go to the laboratorio, take some blood tests, walk to the pharmacy, pick up 3 packs ‘a pills, a syringe, a vile of something, walk back and have a nice lady nurse stick me in the butt with God knows what.

What does it say about our American healthcare system that I checked myself into an international hospital in EGYPT to get a clean bill of health before coming home?  Five and a half hours of tests (including an EKG, a chest x-ray, and emergency room care) came out to a whopping $47.  Anyway, where was I?

Ah yes, as much as I’m aching to watch the season finale of The Bachelor (and surprise my Dad with a single long-stemmed rose just as he surprises me with the same) AND the season premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race (snuggling up with my Mom, jaws to the floor, LIVING for every death drop and drama queen)…… I’m more excited to get this show on the road.

Originally, I had my sights set on the Hawaiian Islands.  Honey bee sanctuaries, coffee plantations, mango orchards, Buddhist temples.  I had a lock on this foodie treehouse community on Maui that looked PERFECT for me…… and after enthusiastically accepting my application, they waited 3 weeks of radio silence to tell me that, ‘yeah, umm, actually, sorry, we’re full’.

oh, no problem. i’ve just been planning my whole life around it.

Life is funny.  One minute you’re on top of the world (i.e. standing on an oyster a loaf of bread) and the next, you’re more confused than you’ve ever been.  Like, ever.  You have this beautiful 12-month transformation and then doubt creeps in.  Fear bubbles up.  You go from absolute clarity of vision and purpose to…… feeling unstable, untethered and completely lost in the wind.

This January, I took a nosedive into an introspective coma…… that turned into a three-week existential drift.  What am I doing?  Where am I going?  Why do I feel so off?  What the f*ck is wrong with me?  I’m surrounded by family & friends, why don’t I feel like I fit?  Where do I belong?  What’s missing?  THREE people sent me the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile application in the same week…… should I just apply already?!

Unable to silence the noise in my head…… going to bed at 4, 5, 6 in the morning…… I was searching for answers when I couldn’t even pinpoint the questions.  In the waiting room of my own life, I had nothing but time to set up camp in my own thoughts.

All the big-ticket items I’d successfully banished from my brain, last year, came rushing forward.  Career.  Marriage.  Mortgage.  Kids.  What if I don’t want any of that?  What if I do?  What if I want ‘em but not yet?  What if I don’t want to put my life on hold to find ‘em?  What does that mean?  What does it look like?  I don’t think I’m ‘behind’ or ‘less than’ because I don’t have my own traditional family, but without one…… at this stage of my life…… it feels like there’s no automatic place I belong.

If having a nuclear family is the end goal, where does that leave me?

How strange it is to come back to a place you’ve called home for the bulk of your life and feel like you don’t quite fit.  Maybe it was reverse culture shock or the winter blues or something else, but America felt chaotic.  And complicated and spread out and unnecessarily huge.  There were too many options for almost everything.  Which sounds like an odd thing to complain about, but it was really overwhelming to have EVERY AVAILABLE OPTION for EVERYTHING I COULD THINK OF right at my fingertips.

What do I want to eat?  I could lit’trally have anything.  What do I want to wear?  My closet is humongous.  Coming from an entire year of eating what was offered and wearing 1 of 4 outfits in my backpack, the excess and sheer scale of seemingly-unimportant decisions I was forced to make, on a daily basis, was a lot to process.

It felt like clutter, weighing me down and clogging my synapses.  Oversaturating everything and making it harder for me to focus on what was important.

And then re-exposure to mass advertising on TOP of it?  Forget about it.  You can only hear so many commercials telling you you’re confused, before you start to wonder…… ‘Well, shit, AM I dietary nitrate deficient!?  DOES mouthwash raise my blood pressure?  SHOULD I be using activated charcoal and calculating my macros?  SHOULD I BE HARVESTING MY CORD BLOOD?!?!?’

you know…… when that opportunity presents itself

Moral of the story: I’m a mess.  A hot, freakin’ mental emotional & spiritual mess who’s embarking on Round 2 not because it’s fun (but it is) and not because it’s job-avoidance (but it is), but because I have a whole lotta questions that need answering.  BIG questions like: what do I want above all else?  What will my life look like going forward?  What if a traditional family isn’t enough for me?  Why does cotton advertise?  Which soap do I use for my hands: the bath bar or the facial bar?  Does ANYONE know what kind of champagne to buy?  Do I like extra dry?  Wtf is brut?

Aimed at sinking the battleship of my own confusion once and for all until at least mid-summer, I’m heading to South America for 3.5 months to hit the reset button, start from scratch, and search for…… something.  I won’t know what it is until I find it, but I know I need it [back].  Similar to Christopher Columbus’s now-famous declaration, before he sailed the ocean blue, ‘Guys, I…… have a feeling…… we should be getting on these boats.  Trust me, I…… think we’ll find something.’

actual footage from the santa maria

After scouring the continent for volunteer opps (and empanadas), I’m confident I’ve cooked up the perfect storm of South American scheduling.  STARTING WITH a spiritual community, in the backwoods of Brazil, that focuses on the opening of the heart and transcendence of the mind.  (Because I’m a sucker for all things rooted in community, spirituality and connection…… and because nothing screams ‘vacation’ like a philosophical bootcamp.)

But, hey, before we get to that (although I’ve techhhhnically already been here for 3 weeks – oops), let’s discuss the first 3-day appetizer of my journey: Rio de Janeiro.  On my way to the Source Temple Sanctuary in Cunha, Brazil, I had a brief love affair with Rio.  (And my 6’7” couchsurfing host, Bruno.  Heyoooooo!)

but that skyline, tho (view from sugarloaf mtn)

First of all, it’s a metropolitan city WITH A RAINFOREST IN IT.  Mountains are JUTTING OUT OF THE SEA, people!  Did you know this?  I did not know this.  Where have I been?  Why didn’t I watch at least one of the promo videos for the 2016 Rio Olympics?  It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seeeeen.

Rio impressed me from the top of Sugarloaf Mountain (after I huffed up the ‘easy hiking trail’ with 15 pounds of ice cream on my hips) to the bottom of Escadaria Selaron (the iconic, mosaic-tiled staircase where I stood, like a creep, taking pictures of all the impossibly-cute, old men).

especially this guy

look at how cute he is

LOOK AT HIM

In 3.5 days, I turned Rio OUT.  I hit the Copacabana and Ipanema beaches (but prefered the seclusion & island views from Red Beach), trammed up Corcovado Mountain for the Christ the Redeemer statue (because there have been ‘lots of robberies lately’ on the hiking trail- no thank you), gawked at both the Metropolitan Cathedral of Rio (once compared to an ‘angular technicolor pyramid left by Mayans from the future’) and the Sambadrome (where I got to cheer on the marching bands & dance troupes as they competed for top billing in Carnival’s parade), and, last but not least, ate as many pão de queijos as minutes in the day (cheese balls, sold on the street for a quarter, that landed somewhere on the mozzarella stick/cheese bread spectrum).

Did I mean to invade Rio the weekend before Carnival that, depending on who you asked, gets just as rowdy?  No.  It was good ‘ole dumb luck to be surrounded by so much half-naked eye candy at all hours of the day.  Flower crowns and rabbit ears and sparkly skirts and miniature speedos… boas and bow ties and bodysuits made of…… wait, is that just glitter?  Wow, she looks fabulous.

The name of the Carnival game seems to be:

1. Wear as little as possible (cuz it’s freaking H-O-T and you’re drunk)
2. Stick a feather in your hat and call it macaroni

As long as you have a bathing suit, a Wonder Woman crown, and a set of angel wings, tied to your bra strap, made of… wait, are those just rainbow sequin sparkle curtains?  Wow, she looks fabulous.

my only regret in life is not buying this streamer-shoulder-padded bathing suit

Walking through the streets of Rio, so close to Carnival, I couldn’t help but flashback to the ridiculocity of Liz & Kim’s ‘Hurricane & Hand Grenade Bachelorette Mardi Gras Extravaganza’ down in New Orleans.  A different story for a different day but, in a nutshell, exactly what you think would happen at a double bachelorette party during Mardi Gras…… happened (in spectacular fashion).

Matt AND Liz got hit by cars, Anny lost a tooth, I performed a one-woman show on the street, and Bridgett’s camera was maxed out with pictures of her own legs.  (To Anny’s credit, she didn’t actually lose her tooth because, in her words, ‘it’s not lost if you know where it is.’)

where’s waldo find the drunk pirate

Flash forward to Rio’s Carnival and absolutely zero chance of drunk-ordering a burger po’boy (3 burger patties spaced out on an entire loaf of french bread) at 4 in the morning.  ‘Cuz Rio doesn’t have po’boys, silly; I ordered a mega cheddar over at Bob’s.

right alongside the rest of rio’s half-drunk, half-glittered people

Arriving as a solo traveler, I didn’t anticipate drinking much or joining the party.  But, in a surprising turn of events, I had TWO mega cheddars fun nights in Rio.  The first with my gorgeous hunk of a couchsurfing host, Bruno, who made me caipirinhas, as we listened to Brené Brown’s TED Talk on vulnerability…… before dancing our hearts out at a racetrack rock bar & wolfing down 3am Brazilian hot dogs served outta the trunk of some guy’s station wagon.

‘connection is what gives us purpose and meaning in our lives’.

thanks, brene brown. and thanks, hot dog bar car.

Then there was a couple ‘a wacky Germans I met in the airport, Michael & Eva, who I liked IMMEDIATELY after Eva’s story about sleepwalking in a hotel last week (without pants) directly to a stranger’s room… asking that stranger man if she could borrow his pants to walk back to her room… and the guy just GIVING HER HIS PANTS!  What. Is. Happening.

Michael, Eva and I spent an entire day together.  From beers (and impulse head feather purchases) at Christ the Redeemer to beers on the beach, beers in the street, and beers at the Sambadrome… we ended up going harder than expected.

shoulder sit totem pole with jc

the gang’s all here!

beers with a view taste better. i don’t know, it’s science.

It’s safe to say I fell in love with Brazil instantly.  Caipirinhas, fresh acai, hot dog bar cars, hippie craft fairs, $1.50 air-conditioned ubers, and NATIONAL PRIDE smeared over every square inch of the city.

Watching the locals’ parade through that Sambadrome, representing all shapes sizes colors & ages…… watching them crush every samba singalong, let everything hang out in the dance numbers, and sweat their nuts off for each other, for the fans, for the moment, and for their COUNTRY was something truly special.

sambadromo & me!

metropolitan cathedral of rio

vermelha ‘red’ beach

and on the other side of sugarloaf… flamengo beach

aaaaaand the COPA. copacabana.

Welp, it’s been fun, Rio. Now, it’s on to an ashram for a month to detox my mind, body and soul. NOBODY TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS ON THE BACHELOR. I’m avoiding all entertainment news and Bachelor Nation memes until my end-of-May return.  Wish me luck on my spiritual journey making it 3 months without finding out who Colton chooses. If anyone! Oooo, I can’t wait.

xoxo,

She Gone (Again) Girl