the ramble, the update

So it turns out I'm not too good at this blogging thing lately. A few things have happened. I've been writing and reading, a lot. Reading mostly the impressive work of my peers and students here at VCU. Seriously, I'm routinely blown away, which makes me want to be a better writer. The last story I turned into workshop was pretty disjointed but cool if only for the fact that it takes place mostly on a night train in Thailand. We will talk about it at our meeting next Wednesday and I'm frankly kind of dreading it. Also, my reading as part of our Moveable Feast monthly series went really well. I was reading some scenes from a novel I don't think I'll ever finish about a disfuctional romantic relationship. I gave the audience the choice between narrative of that relationships beginnings or of it's fall out. They chose the latter, yelling it at me, not even letting me have them vote, which was all part of my master plan. I recently had a visitor from far away for a week. It was amazing to show him what my new life in Richmond was like. For Halloween we showed up late at a grad student party full with people dressed like rockstars--from Loretta Lynn to Kurt Cobain to Rob Zombie. The two of us wore all black and kuffiahs and told people we were an obscure pro-Palestinean punk band, and they were like, oh. We biked around and sat on a sunny rock in the James River and ate amazing bbq rips like barbarians and drank beers while we watched Obama's votes come in. Could hardly believe he won, though, when I think about it, what was our alternative, really? Could you imagine what things would be like right now if McCain won? For starters, I'm pretty sure the thousands of people who took to the streets all over the world would not have been as jubilant. What else? I have been delighted by the students I see in the Writing Center at school. Each week, I have 12 random appointments, 20 minute slots with people from all over the university looking for help with what they are writing for class. At first, it freaked me out, but now I kind of enjoy it. Not to say there aren't moments when someone says something or I read something, and I think, this isn't happening. I've been going up to NoVa to see my parents quite a bit, which is a really cool thing, considering this is the closest I've lived to them in over ten years. Writing that makes me feel old. I planted some tulip bulbs in our front flower bed in honor of the first frost. I just ate some amazing tomato soup and now I have to go write.