plum position [damson's toast]

I hadn't exactly prepared for this. Hell, the entire council run had started as an offhand comment with the girls at brunch one day, over a heaping stack of persimmon-pear pancakes and maybe one too many breakfast mimosas - "Win a nation through its stomach," Anjou had laughed, washing down another bite of fruit and raising her glass in a drunken cheer - but one thing led to another, and next thing you know I'm standing center stage in a fundraiser auction, wearing an overdone dress that makes me look like an amateur's layer cake, with too much fondant and not enough actual cake on the inside. Not exactly what I'd have liked to angle for - after all, the blog posts where I dial up the cute or the rustic charm factor have been getting the most views lately - but it'd have to do.

"Good evening, everyone, and thank you all for coming out here tonight." A round of enthusiastic clapping erupts from the audience. "For those of you who follow my blog, you know that five years ago when the travel office first opened, I made it my bucket list to visit every one of the districts."

District One was the first off that list - easiest to get through the paperwork - but honestly they'd been more like a dilapidated version of the Capitol than anything else. When I published that experience, though, people had immediately started flooding my inbox, asking when I planned to visit the more exotic districts.

I'd put up a poll on my blog for my next destination, and readers overwhelmingly voted for Four and Seven. No matter how many arenas you visit, seeing the real ocean and standing in a crowd of screaming fishmongers just hits different. It took days to scrub the smell of fish out of my skin, but it was absolutely worth it. And the redwoods of Seven - Glamour Kinkade could never hope to imitate their greatness, not when you've seen their truth.

Next had been Ten, and then - well, this year's plan had been to showcase the majestic ivory towers of Six, just for a change of pace from the natural beauty I'd highlighted in previous years. I shake my head at the memory of that disappointment, offering the audience a sad smile.

"Unfortunately, with only half of that list checked off, I've had to postpone these travels for my safety. Walking into an active war zone is too much for me, and our late President's heinous activities have only worsened the crisis in several districts."

Maybe that was the problem with that whole lot of career politicians. Too much of the narrow-minded view that everything can be solved with a few bombs or other such raw, masculine means of control. It was those sort of people that continue to turn the Capitol into a concrete jungle and make us into a place where so many citizens feel lonely and alienated from each other.

"But then again, you look at him, shutting himself off in his rose garden, and you can't help but see how he became so stuffy, so out of touch. You can't govern a whole different place without walking down their cracked-dirt roads, without being willing to take a little time immersing yourself in how they live."

"It's all well and good, the sort of theory you can learn in any business school, but nothing beats sitting across a table chatting with some farmer in Ten who's offering you the fried-up unmentionables of his bulls." That had definitely been the most ... interesting thing I'd ever tasted in my travels. The audience laughs, and I lean in to the microphone, whispering into it conspiratorially, "You know, everything tastes pretty good when it's fried with enough salt and butter."

Now, that got quite a few shouts of agreement.

It's not as though I expect any of these people to go to Four themselves and accept a bowl of fish from some food cart off the street. But I know one of the big parts of why my blog has been a huge hit is the vicarious appeal from readers feeling nostalgic for a simpler time. Thinking to themselves, if those uncivilized savages in District Eleven look so happy, then why can't we be happy? Imagining standing in a field of hay under a warm sun, milking a cow or churning some butter instead of inside some windowless cubicle in a soul-sucking office job.

And maybe, just maybe, voting me in to the High Council.