Pink Boots and a Machete (Special Sales Edition): My Journey from NFL Cheerleader to National Geographic Explorer

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The hive like mind of pro wrestling fans then created what is now known as "Fandangoing," which is, quite simply, dancing and singing along to Fandango's theme song.

Mireya Mayor is an astonishing, inspirational woman who has done some amazing things in her adventures around the globe. She's a Fulbright scholar, she's a National Science Foundation Fellow, she has a Ph.D. from Stony Brook, she discovered a new species of mouse lemur and she even worked with the government in Madagascar to create a National Park to protect the mouse lemur's habitat. Impressive.Time for another cheerleading fact: While Princeton was the first university to enjoy cheers from the stands, the University of Minnesota gets the credit for having the very first cheerleader who directed the crowd. In 1923, the Uniiversity of Minnesota also became the first university to allow women to participate in the sports. The Guy with Too Much Spirit

Here's an excerpt from one: "the show can't decide whether to treat Mayor as an expert, or as the title and location hint, a bit of a sex symbol." He then added, "But throughout the show she wears a wool cap and drab clothes that just beg us to take her seriously." This was in contrast to the observation of another critic, who wrote, "Explorers require rugged gear, the sort Indiana Jones girds himself in. Then there's Mireya Mayor, a sexy blond explorer. She fills out a tank top nicely." I can't win. If I wear tank tops, I'm vying for attention. If I cover up, it's only because I want to be taken seriously. Regardless, the first critic lost all credibility when he called my clothes drab. They were both hip and designer. Mayor has a theory about gorilla social hierarchy that is somewhat unorthodox, based on past scientific observation: "... the prevailing thought has been that female gorillas are, without question, the weaker sex, forced to play by the rules. At least, that is what researchers had been reporting for decades, However, most of those researchers were male." Mayor posits that perhaps it is the females who actually have the power. Why would this not have merit? After all, how many researchers have defaulted to a male perspective without noticing, even the women? (I am referring here to the stereotypical male perspective, as I believe gender to be more of a spectrum.) If there is one central theme of the book, it it this: that this sort of juxtaposition that many might find strange or odd - the mixture of the stereotypically feminine and the stereotypically masculine - is, well, not that strange or odd at all.

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Being a male cheerleader isn’t easy. To start with, male cheerleaders do not enjoy the same kind of popularity as their female counterparts. However, more importantly, male cheerleaders often have to lift their fellow squad members and perform moves and step which require a lot of physical strength. For instance, the guy in this picture is certainly trying very hard but he clearly does not have the strength for it. Many of the scientists and animal species mentioned in the book are familiar to me, although the fossa, a cat-like carnivore related to the mongoose family was a new one...it is such an odd looking creature with similarities to a cat, but with a long lean body.

Mayor says it looked similar to known species of mouse lemur, but there was something different about the one she caught. Pink Boots and a Machete is the story of Mireya Mayor, a "girly-girl" and yet also a "tom-boy" who was raised by three Cuban women in Miami. She was just as interested in things like fashion and make-up as she was chasing animals and collecting bugs and wading through creeks. The story is essentially an autobiography written in a very casual "bloggy" sort of way, with an often subtle dose of good humor. She invites the reader along for the ride as we follow her metamorphosis from from Cuban girl in Miami to National Geographic Explorer, with a stops along the way as an NFL cheerleader for the Miami Dolphins and a TV star. She presents herself as both an expert and as a "regular person," something that is very hard to do. There's no jargon here, and no pretense. While I was in college, I was an NFL cheerleader for the Miami Dolphins," Mireya Mayor says. "I took this anthropology class really by accident, because I had to take a science requirement. I was on a very different path to becoming a lawyer." But some of her fans might be surprised by what Mayor was up to before she trekked around remote regions of the world. The writing was therefore better than expected, though not great. It's conversational, but so much is left out! As other Goodreads reviewers have noted, she starts a story, gets to the climax, and then ends it. The example someone else has given of hanging off a mountainside and noticing that her rope was fraying, and then suddenly she's at the top of the mountain, is typical.

I could not put this book down. I read it in an entire day. This is because a) it is a thrilling and fascinating series of stories & b) it is a very smooth read.