the happiness project

Just Don’t Call Me Ma’am: How I Ditched the South, Forgot My Manners, and Managed to Survive My Twenties with (Most of) My Dignity Still Intact is a book I (Anna, the author of this happiness project blog) wrote at the end of my twenties. It came out in April 2010 and you should seriously consider buying a copy today. Why? Because it’s a good thing to read something other than facebook from time to time. I know it’s hard—stalking the 9^th grade crush and then discovering you’re cuter than his current girlfriend is oddly rewarding, but reading a real book is a good thing too, I promise.

This book is a series of essays about leaving home and falling in love and leaving love and falling down and then finally figuring yourself out. Said more simply, it’s about a Southern girl who sets out to find a new home, and instead finds herself. That Southern girl? Surprise! She is me!

There’s a lot of talk about pecan pies and the advice that my grandmother gives me. But don’t get the idea that it’s too wholesome, I also spend a fair amount of time on Brazilian bikini waxes and vodka and what happens when you combine the two.

People who read the book often describe it with the word ‘funny’. But I’m not going to say it’s funny because that’s the damned surest way to guarantee you won’t find it entertaining at all. And you should know that I am here for your entertainment – WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.

The following is a description of the book that I pulled from the proposal I sold to my publisher. Instead of rewriting a less corporate and more entertaining version to post here, I’m just going to cut and paste this version and ask that you insert some four-letter words and the occasional vagina joke so you’ll get the true flavor of the book:

Just Don’t Call Me Ma’am is a story about one woman and the choices that add up to be her twenty-something life. From moving to new cities to domestic disasters and the occasional nervous breakdown, it is a tale for every woman who has ever woken up and wondered how she ended up smack dab in the middle of a life she doesn’t completely recognize.

When I graduated from college I said to hell with living in the South. I didn’t know how to bake a pie and I wasn’t interested in getting married – I decided that if I was going to get ahead in the world then I needed to get out of town. I stopped saying ‘y’all’ and promptly relocated to the Northeast. That was a part of the country where people made shit happen, and so it seemed an appropriate place to remake myself.

I bought every piece of black clothing I could afford, got an ad agency job and started to live the life I thought I should want. When people asked where I was from, I’d change the topic of conversation. Even though Texas was the only place I’d ever felt at home, I was embarrassed to mention it. My closest friends were the ones I had from college, but I would sooner have fallen on a sword spearing the lime in my vodka drink before I would admit to being a member of a Southern sorority.

Of course in my early twenties, I never wondered whether a person could cut out the past without consequence. I got fancy bikini waxes and fancy friends and all the while I was wondering when the life I had cherry-picked would start feeling like my own. The thing is, it never really did. Eventually I realized the only way to fix whatever was broken would be to dig deep and figure out who I really was, and a big part of that was remembering where I came from.

Just Don’t Call Me Ma’am isn’t a roadmap through our times. It isn’t a collection of sage advice by someone schooled in the ivory halls of academia. There are times when it isn’t even 100% grammatically correct. But it is a book that will feel familiar to every woman who picks it up, like a favorite sundress you pull out on the first warm day of the year. It is a friend who understands what it’s like for the world to spin out of control. It is a pillow to hide under after a night of too many cocktails with coworkers and hazy memories of … oh wait, oh God, DID I REALLY KARAOKE BON JOVI IN FRONT OF MY BOSS?

It’s a book that lets you laugh and cry and then end up in a place that makes you feel good. Because, after all, ending up in a good place is the whole point of your twenties, and of going out into the world to discover who you are.

Sounds like a pretty great time, right? RIGHT?

(Come on, people, work with me here.)

Just Don’t Call Me Ma’am. Available at your local bookstore and online and from the trunk of my car because I always have a few copies thrown in there. One pair of high heels,  a diaper bag, some copies of the book, and like ten extra packets of Whataburger fancy ketchup—why? Because you should always be prepared for whatever life might throw your way.