WARNING: PROFANITY ALERT. ANGRY RANT AHEAD. TURN BACK NOW IF FAT BODIES OR THE F-BOMB OFFEND YOU I’m pissed off. I am. I am beyond annoyed, angry-to-my-core, really fucking tired of this shit PISSED OFF. I’m ‘I want to break things just to hear them smash’ pissed off. I’m ‘punch the next person who pushes…
I Believe…
Belief is a funny thing. We cling to it. Put our faith in it. Use it to define our day to day – to make sense of our world. What we believe is so intrinsically linked to who we ARE that there’s often no separating the two. Belief defines us. It governs how we see…
The Strange and Familiar
Isn't it funny how something that was once so familiar can eventually feel so foreign that it is just...strange? I'm writing this piece from a public computer in our town's public library -- a place that still feels quite foreign to me. It shouldn't, but it does. I practically grew up in my hometown library,…
Walking Fat in a Skinny World
I’ve been struggling lately. By all accounts, my life is pretty damn great. I live in a great town, have fantastic friends, and an amazing girlfriend who surprises me more and more each day with her capacity to love….but I’m struggling. Sister Act opens on Friday night, and I’m playing one of the nuns. I…
Figuring It Out
I have a confession. It may come as a shock to some of you, but……. I don’t always read the instructions. Well, let me clarify. I don’t always FOLLOW the instructions. Sometimes, like the other day when I was trying to put a new drying rack together, I didn’t even bother reading them. I looked…
Honor the Women
Cindy Cone. Margaret Carlton. Pat Skrocki. Pat LaMarche. Antonia Hyde. They come from different backgrounds, hold different beliefs, but they all have something in common. They’re all women. Strong women. And they’re all women who have made an indelible impact on my life. I am who and where I am because these women each shared…
Still, I Stand
Six years ago, I reached my breaking point, grew a backbone, and left the strict, completely unhealthy religious sect I'd grown up in. It was the most terrifying, liberating thing I've ever and will ever do. Today, it feels like a lifetime ago, a distant memory I can look back on with pride. Six years…
Of Fear and Apologies
Fear is a powerful emotion. It literally causes changes in body and brain chemistry, prompts visceral, physical reactions, and can provoke us to react in ways that are less than, well, rational and kind. Sigh. Sadly, I know this firsthand. After the election, I was terrified. Not just by the direction the country had chosen,…
Hope is a Verb – For Cincinnati and Beyond
Hope is a verb. It is an action. A project. A protest. A defiance. A MARCH. It is love. It is created in the minds and hearts, through the signs and shouts of the masses Ringing through a park and neighborhood that, itself, is a testimony to what hope can do. It is renewal. Hope.…
When the Introvert Dances
I took a little poll on Facebook today. I wanted to ask my personal collective hive-mind what they thought about me. Specifically, I wanted to know if they thought I was an introvert or an extrovert. The answers, surprisingly, were all over the map. I got everything from extreme extrovert to extreme introvert, and lots…
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