The Hunger Games

By D Sharon Pruitt [CC-BY-2.0
(www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

It hurts. The movie - The Hunger Games - if you watch it, it hurts. I've been home for about an hour, and I'm still zombie-like, stunned, trying to find my numb place. I suspect Tristan feels it too. We've spoken only a handful of sentences since we left the theater. Something dark, palpable, heavy. It weighs on us, that which words cannot transmute to air. I shy from the cliff of tears, the inevitable tumble of pain.

My mother tells me I just feel things more strongly than others do. I can't speak for others; thus I can't know if there is truth to the latter. But as for the former, it is one of the deepest truths I know about myself.

I. Feel things. More. Strongly. 

A Week at the Y

I joined the YMCA in January because they have yoga classes and, more importantly, their promotional offer to waive the one-time join fee was just days from expiring. How could I not join and let such a great deal go to waste? Now two months later, the Christmas money I'm using to cover the monthly dues is almost gone, and I might be fatter than when I started. This is likely because when I exercise, I eat. (Case in point: I went to two yoga classes back to back this morning, and just followed them up with tea and red velvet cake at the coffee shop before starting this post.) And if I added up the number of times I've actually gone to the Y, I'd discover that I've only done a week's worth of exercise in two months. My willpower and motivation are awesome. And by awesome, I mean completely awful. But because I'm uber-judgmental, these handful of classes have been humorous, humbling, and healing.

The Truth

Having tried in vain since November to change it, or at least avoid it, I must now swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth:

I don't like being a stepmom.

"Love Bites" - Le Fin

By Evan-Amos (Own work) [CC0],
via Wikimedia Commons

Missed the beginning? Click to catch up: "Love Bites" and "Love Bites" - Deux.

February 12, 1999

Dearest Jennifer,

     Your warnings about my turning the cafeteria into a chaotic love-fest have been duly noted. As you well know, Cornfed County High School will not be accepting deliveries today.

"Love Bites" - Deux

Missed the beginning? Read it here.

February 9, 1999

Dear Cupid -

     Thanks ever so much! You said, “Love is blind.” Well, infatuation is blind too, and boy did it ever blind me. But not to worry! Thanks to you, good buddy, my eyes were unexpectedly jarred wide open. I was sitting in Dairy Queen with a cute guy, thinking, Hey, this just might work out! Maybe Cupid and I aren't on such bad terms after all, when lo and behold, you shot me in the butt.

Everything I Need to Know about Lobbying I Learned in Kindergarten

Photo Credit: Kentuckians for the Commonwealth

Wednesday I got home from KFTC's Economic Justice Lobby Day just in time to pick up Sophie from school. On the way home, I told her, "Sophie-dog (yep, my stepdaughter and dog have the same name, more on that another time) is going to be so excited to see us. I haven't been home all day."

Sophie(-girl), incredulous: "You finally found a job?!?" (Child, if we were cave people, you might not have survived to adulthood.)

Dreams of Joe Hill

Dr. King, "I Have a Dream," 1963

In honor of Martin Luther King Day, I am introducing "Dreams of Joe Hill" - the start of a thread of posts about a lifetime of longing to save the world and my first steps (long overdue) as a newborn activist. My story begins October 13, 2010, with an email to my family and friends:

Last weekend, I attended my first ever Kentuckians for the Commonwealth event - the Annual Membership Meeting in Jabez, KY. At the risk of sounding melodramatic – it made my life finally make sense.