My life is awesome.

There are a few things that are awesome about my life right now.

1. Cadbury Creme Eggs are 19 cents at Walgreens.

2. I have ONE final left in a week.

3. I'm going to an "Equality Prom" tonight in a Goodwill-tastic '80s dress.

4. I'm leaving for the greatest adventure of my life so far in 8 days. EIGHT!

Here are the final plans, tickets bought and everything:

May 8- take off from ATL

May 10- four flights later, land in Siem Reap, Cambodia

May 10-June 2- spend three weeks travel writing, having classes in the morning, researching, learning the culture, and writing during the day, and a final class poolside at night. We'll be staying at a Bed and Breakfast and having free weekends to travel as our hearts desire. Hopefully we'll make it to Phnom Phen to see the killing fields and Vietnam at some point.

June 2- fly to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

June 2-6- Who knows. Hang around Kuala Lumpur, take in whatever Malaysia has to offer.

June 6- Fly to Chiang Mai, Thailand. The Gap Adventures people pick us up at the airport to begin our trek through the northern hilltribes of Thailand.

June 6-10- This is the trip we'll be on in Thailand. Pretty bangin for $269, huh?

June 10- Make our way back to Bangkok somehow. Hopefully by train?

June 11- Hang out in Bangkok. Tour around and see what the city has to offer.

June 12- Return home! I'll basically be living the same day twice so the 28 hour trip will all be in one day for me.

So now that you know the plan, get ready to follow me through my Southeast Asia adventures! They begin in T-minus 8 days. Bring it on.

I eat icecream twice a day and STILL have skinny arms.

There are a few valuable things that the brothel has taught me. Well, many valuable things. But aside from avoiding the dining room on hot chicken salad day and not turning up the music in the bathroom too early in the morning, sorority life has taught me how to carry myself.

Literally.

Follow me along as we discover the ways of the sorostitute stance.

Now, OF COURSE, there is the sorority squat.

The squat takes place when you have too many people to all stand in one line. Or, in this case, to show how my high school has continued it's presence at the brothel. Up top: the seniors. Next: the juniors. Etc., ending with the new freshman baby on bid day.

But that isn't what we're discussing today.

Today, we are discussing the skinny arm.

Like this?

Nope.

The skinny arm is what happens when you put your hand up on your hip. That's right, like the song (You put yo hand up on yo hip, when I dip, you dip, we dip.).

Once the hand is on the hip, you accentuate your waist and your arm appears skinnier.

"How does this miracle occur!?" you might ask. "Teach me your ways, Sensei!"

When the arm is flat against the body it appears 2 dimensional. AKA fat. 3 dimensional= skinny.

A proper sorostitute does the skinny arm at all times.

Observe.

Skinny arm with one other person:

Skinny arm with a small group of friends (think...sexy looking bookends):

Skinny arm with a large group of friends:

Skinny arm when you're dressed like a fool:

Skinny arm with boys:

Skinny arm when you're dressed like a fool with boys:

The skinny arm also helps you avoid looking awkward.

Ya know why this picture is awkward?

Because there is no skinny arm present.

Or this one:

Do you see a skinny arm? Nope.

No skinny arm=awkward, 2D, fatty mcfat pictures.

Now my eldest sister, Ashley, thinks the skinny arm is ridiculous. Over Easter she made fun of all new age sorostitutes by waving her arms over her head, Circle of Life style, before placing them on her hips in a gigantic gesture. The rest of us just lift our arm and put our hand on our hip.

Check out how skinny we all look though (yes, even you Hunter):

Egg dying isn't the expected environment for the skinny arm, but I like where your head's at, Ash.

The problem in today's society is that we put too much pressure on young women to be skinny. Oh, I'm not talking about myself. I am 21 and very well aged and matured. I'm talking about high school girls.

Because prom pictures have gone up on Facebook. And, you guessed it, they have learned the skinny arm.

Let me point out that the skinny arm is a right of passage.

Now, as a disclaimer to all you anti-greek people that think sororities are a university's way of forming middle school cliques and excluding all the non-Greekers, I am not saying that you must be Greek to do the skinny arm. I am simply saying that young girls should not be worried about their arm fat. They should leave that up to old hags like me and enjoy their punch and cookies.

Hole in three.

I love change.

And I want a tattoo.

In an effort to avoid getting a tattoo and feed my need for change at the same time, I have pierced my ears once again.

What better/safer/more sterile place to get your ears pierced than Wal-Mart?

My kitchen, you might say. While making dinner? Of course. But that's where my mom and I pierced my second holes. And variety is the spice of life.

So Wal-Mart it was. I got my cartilage pierced here and figured that since I eventually took that one out that Wally needed a second chance.

Off we went.

Aside from being 80 years old, the Wal-Mart ear-piercer had an early case of Parkinson's. Or so it seemed.

Did I go through with it? Of course. And the piercings are actually quite level. Except for the left one. But hey, it just adds a little character.

The point of all this? Getting your ears pierced for $10 at Wal-Mart is awesome. And I am not above it. And if I were to pierce anything but my ears, I would go somewhere more professional and pay 5 times as much. But I like to keep it classy. So I'll go back to the kitchen.

Back in the day

Since I uploaded that picture from my dog years, I thought I'd share a few more memories of my awesome childhood. Come along with me through yester-year...

**When I was two, my dad found a frog on a windowsill and put it in a box, thinking I would love it. He was wrong.**

**I like to tell people about this picture because to me it is proof that I was always meant to be the dud child and my parents wanted to protect my sisters and not me. But apparently I was a stubborn kid.

This is how dinner went every night of my childhood:

Mom: Cindy, you have to eat 6 bites of your broccoli before you can have icecream.

Me: *silently staring*

Mom: Ok, you have to have FOUR bites of your broccoli.

Me: *unwavering, staring silently*

Mom: Cindy, if you don't eat two bites of your broccoli, you don't get any dessert all week.

Me: *thinking "silly mother, we've been over this a million times. Give it up." All the while- staring silently.*

Mom: One bite of broccoli. Please. Eat something.

Me, after shoving a teeny piece of broccoli in my mouth: ICECREAMMM!!!!!

So my mother says that I refused to wear a helmet and so she just gave in. Ya know what? I think I believe her.**

**Following the theme of my childhood stubbornness, I refused to let my mother brush my hair. So she cut it all off. Then one day when we were in the grocery store another kid said I looked like a boy. I'm scarred for life.**

**Apparently my sisters weren't as stubborn.**

**Before I had my hair chopped. Come on, we're adorable.**

Hike it up a little more, darling

Jessica Simpson's new show, "The Price of Beauty" has me mesmerized. I so wish that was my job.

This past week she spent time in Marrakech, Morocco- my hometown for a month. I was interested to see what she would say about the town and, as expected, she thought the women were oppressed and oh-so-sad because they chose to cover themselves more than Americans.

At one point, as she sat in her little hoochie shorts, one of the Moroccan women said that she probably could have covered more of her leg.

You'd think with all those producers and such she could have been filled in on the modesty of the country. Yes, they are modest. No, they are not all oppressed and helpless. In fact, they choose their level of modesty throughout their lives.

So anyways, I happen to be writing a paper for international communications on Moroccan dress and actually came up with a good paragraph pertaining to this situation.

"The argument has been made that “If we have to dress like them when we’re in their country (conservatively), then why shouldn’t they have to dress like us in our country?” The key is modesty. Your mother never told you that you weren’t going to school if you didn’t put a shorter skirt on, and your father never told you that your prom dress could use a little more cleavage. If someone came into America from a nudist colony and expected to parade around in their natural state, they would simply get arrested. And in that case, “they” do have to dress like us in our country. Government bans on the Amish head coverings “kapps” has never been an issue and asking Jews to remove their yarmulkes on the Sabbath is unheard of. That is because these days people aren’t afraid of the Amish and they aren’t afraid of Jews. Asking a woman to remove her hijab has nothing to do with wanting to see her hair and has everything to do with stripping her of her culture and identity."

So stick that in your back pocket.

Nooooo thank you.

Through a series of awkward events I decided to put "in a relationship" up on Facebook.

Now all the ads on the right column are for unplanned pregnancy and engagement rings.

As if I didn't have enough anxiety in my life.

Making purple

MTV is many things. Trashy, ridiculous, tasteless, to name a few.

It also has an uncanny ability to scare the shit out of you so that you avoid destructive behavior.

Side note: have you SEEN the new anti-meth commercials?

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YaO4PMBrJI )

Geez.

Anyways, the now classic show "16 and Pregnant" has done just that for me. Aside from most of the new parents being down on the farm hicks, they are also not the most intelligent of our gender. (Fathers, this is your fault, too.)

It amazes me how these couples justify not using protection by saying, "I didn't think it would happen to me."

That's how it works! That's how we procreate! Boy parts+girl parts=baby. Every person you have ever met got here by this equation. This is no surprise party.

Aside from that, I'm very excited that I have made it to age 21 with no pregnancies, addictions or jail time. I've told my parents this before as a compliment to their parenting skills. I understand that accidents happen, but I'm glad I don't have a 5 year old accident running around.

Dressed to impress

I'm ready to start fighting.

So I've found events to go to in order to start my journey as a gay rights activist. Naturally, I'll have to be dressed for the occasion. So I found two shirts that I think have wonderful and profound messages. I shared these ideas with homeboy and he was not impressed.

I'm here to make my case.

The first shirt says:

"If the fetus you save is gay, will you still fight for its rights?"

To begin, this is not a stab at all you anti-choice-ers out there. For me, this is a stab at the Republican party.

Now before we get all political, let me say that I am not the flaming liberal that you may make me out to be. Ask me about affirmative action or finances sometime if you need me to prove it.

I am going to boldly state that I think 98% of Americans do not fit completely into a political party. I understand that our bipartisanship is a big part of what makes up America, but the Republican party makes no sense to me.

I'm a firm believer that the only reason abortion is controversial at all is due to the question of when life starts. Is it when the Phelps sperm meets the egg? Or when the kid can survive on its own? Or when it's full term and pops out? Whatever you may believe, that is the difference between opposing sides.

What I'm saying is that we need a party that fights for rights. In some sense, you could say democrats fight for the right to choose and the right to have a gay marriage. The way I see it, republicans say the fetus should have all the rights a full grown person has, but that a gay person's rights should be limited.

Point being: if you're going to fight for rights, fight for EQUAL rights. No picking and choosing, por favor.

The second shirt I smirked at:

"Gay is the new black."

This naturally had me immediately thinking of the Legally Blonde quote, "Whoever said orange was the new pink was seriously disturbed." It first has you thinking of classic little black dresses and black closed-toe shoes. The message might be read as "gay" being the new cool thing to do.

Good luck with that. I once had a super artsy, transcendental friend of mine tell me he tried to be gay and just couldn't do it. So yea, it doesn't work that way.

The way I like to read it is like this: gay people are just the group that us white, middle-upper class people feel like oppressing these days. Just the flavor of the half-century you might say.

White men love this stuff. They oppress people for their religion, if they're Native American, if they're women, if they're black, and now if they're gay. So, in a better sense, "gay" is the new "them."

Think about it. Can you choose to be gay or black? Negative, ghost rider. Are you any less human if you're gay or black? No sirree.

And yes, us white people are playing the "separate but equal" card again. We all remember how that worked out 50 years ago. "Civil union?" No thanks.

Let's talk about marriage. I've said it before and I'll say it again, marriage is not the property of the church. It is when two people sign a piece of paper. It is not about God's permission, purity, the crucifix on the wall, or the man in a robe rambling in front of a crowd. Atheists get married. Satan worshipers get married. People order mail order brides and get married for citizenship. You get my argument.

Now we look back saying, "Hey, my really awesome black friend would have had to use a different water fountain if someone hadn't stood up and made a difference way back when."

Well now's our chance. Because in 50 years I know my grandkids will look back proudly and say that their grandma fought for what was just.

Put me in, Coach, I'm ready to play.

Join in.

Today, dear friends, is TOMS Day Without Shoes.

TOMS is an organization that sends a pair of shoes abroad for every pair bought. Yes, it has become trendy to wear TOMS shoes, but hell, charity is always cool in my book.

Wanna buy some? www.toms.com

Wanna learn more about the Day Without Shoes? www.onedaywithoutshoes.com

And, much to my mother's dismay, I will be wandering around campus today shoeless.

A Family Affair

The past few weekend have been filled with lots of family fun.

First was parent's weekend at the brothel where you bring your fam in town and take them to dinner before dancing the night away. Luckily Bob and I won a jitterbug contest in 7th grade so we know how to cut a rug.

**Mom and Bob**

**I like to do hoodrat things with my friends**

Then last weekend was Easter of course! Sisters and brother and I all went home to see the rents.

**The girls. The boys couldn't fling their church clothes off fast enough so Easter pictures were just girls this year**

**Another awesome story from my childhood: When I was a kid, just like now, my sisters and I all looked very similar. As all kids do, I would draw family portraits. I would draw a daddy who was tall and yellow with black hair, a mommy who was a bit shorter with red hair, Ashley and I who were both smaller, yellow with yellow hair. And Lisa, between Ashley and I, as a black boy. Now, just to confirm, Lisa has never been black nor has she ever been a boy. But we have one of my 2nd grade drawings as a magnet on our fridge where Lisa is black. She isn't a boy in that one, so I guess she had grown out of it by then? Anyways, I decided to make a family portrait egg for Easter and, in true fashion, I had to include by black brother Lisa. So here she/he is pointing to herself on my egg.**

Cold Hard Proof

If you have been following from the beginning, you will need no background on this. Otherwise, read the "Old School" post from the very beginning of the blog. When I was four I wanted to be a dog. People don't believe the extent to which I pursued this dream. Here is your proof that I made my sister walk me around on a leash:

Red Cross to Bear

Here's a coming of age tale for you.

When I was a wee lass, about 16 years of age, I decided to take a step into adulthood and give blood for the first time at our high school blood drive.

This was no light decision. I've never been super squeamish but voluntarily stabbing yourself with a needle and watching your own blood drain through it was never anything I looked forward to.

But I had made my decision and if I was going to give it, I was going to give it all I got. I was assigned to an early afternoon appointment so I drank 4 bottles of water, had two hearty meals, and was chomping at the bit by the time they had me in the chair.

I was going to be a blood giving champion.

I was extremely badass until halfway through. That's right; tunnel vision, temporarily deaf, everything goes black and white. And then I woke up staring straight at the ceiling to a wet towel on my head, a cup of crushed ice perched in my hand, and a flock of nurses circling around my head.

My darling mother told me that I was no longer allowed to give blood. While, I assumed, I was under her roof.

So last October I saw that the Red Cross was having a blood drive on campus and I had an hour or so to spare so I dropped in. Everything went great.

Today I realized that after my travels this summer I won't be able to give for a year so I stopped in another drive today and gave again.

Let me just say that I was complimented on my bombass veins and that I filled the little baggy in under 4 minutes.

So it is safe to say that I am now the blood giving champion I always knew I was meant to be.