It's exactly 3 years from my last post.

Since then, we lost Hugh's mother to pancreatic cancer. Hugh decided to go get his PhD in Geography from the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Before he left we put a kitchen in the studio so we can rent it. I have remained in Durham.

The economy tanked as a result of the theft of the Bush administration and the mismanagement of investments by Wall Street and the Big Banks. We elected Barack Obama, the first African American President...naturally, having inherited 2 bullshit wars and a broken economy from 8 years of Republican pillaging, it is "all his fault".  Politics have been the main focus of the last three years of my life and to date, it seems the rebublican party has split between homicidal idiots and old white farts with money and the democratic party has split between people who read and people who don't.

Books I've read that are worth mentioning: Rings of Saturn, by W. G. Sebald. Experiencing this writing is like floating in a dream. I hover in his and in my own through a meloncholy landscape while being told the most amazing stories; dreams within dreams within dreams.  Eudora Welty's small book on writing, One Writer's Beginnings, is arranged in 3 parts: Listening, Learning to See and Finding a Voice. It seems train trips and her imaginings while taking them informed her understanding of how stories flow in our minds; forward, perhaps, but with lots of sidings. I've found this insight useful.

I've become more interested in my own writing having found a friend who is turning me on to new work that is as much poetry as prose. It's something I can relate to. I'm hoping to post photos and writing here and try to capture some sense of  the way Durham has evolved into a really wonderful place to be again.