The Free Lunch? It Really Doesn't Exist.

I've been home in Colorado for about a month. That's been nice, but kind of. . . well, boring. As a way to alleviate some of said boredom, I went with my parents a couple weeks ago to volunteer with their service group--The Lions Club--at a sporting event for blind athletes. At the event, I got to talking to another member of the club--Jim--about my future plans and why I was interested in pursuing documentary filmmaking.

A few days later, my mom asked if I wanted to come to the bi-monthly Lions Club meeting that day. I wasn't really interested, but she said there'd be free lunch, and who passes that up?

So I went, ate my free lunch and politely listened to the club members discuss the orders of business, one of which was a proposal to start inviting non-club members to come and talk about whatever it was they did. At this very moment, Jim-the-guy-from-the-other-night pipes up and says he'd really like it if I could talk more about what I was doing and why.

Suddenly, every head in the room swiveled to stare at me. The president of the club announced that HE thought it was a great idea (with my dad very thoughtfully seconding him) and asked if I'd be willing to come back and present at the next meeting. Before I could try to back out, my dad had assured them I'd be happy to do it.

So much for free lunch.

So yesterday, I came back to the meeting, got up in front of this club of mostly old, slightly cranky Republican men and talked about how JVC and the union had turned me into a crazy lefty commie who believes in obscene things like empowerment and equal rights for all and how I was going to take all of those beliefs and use them as the basis for propaganda. Ahem, I mean documentaries. (Or at least this is how I am sure what I said--which I really tried to make as neutral and non-partisan as possible--was perceived. Seriously, when I mentioned--JUST MENTIONED--Michael Moore in passing, eyes narrowed, lips curled, and I thought at least one guy might attempt to jump me and shake those liberal values right out of me.) Needless to say, it felt like a tough crowd. I definitely earned that damn lunch.