If we ever need to move again, we will not use Atlas/Ace Moving in Austin. Nor would I recommend them for transport of art or archives. Our goods finally arrived on September 8, with several broken items and fees doubled what were estimated for a shuttle truck. Our belongings were held hostage until we authorized those charges. There was also that moving crew member who I found sorting through my belongings in the Atlas truck in Seattle without cause. And that driver with the broken hand? Who broke down in Colorado and then elsewhere on the road because of bad brakes and parts? We will definitely be filing a complaint with the BBB.

I saw the commercial for a new romantic comedy out soon with Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart. I am not a fan of either. But the last shot in the preview was the Space Needle which gave me sharp pangs of longing. Yes, that's right. Heartsickness for a city. Which means that I will probably go and see cheezy movie so that I can reminisce about the PNW. And yes, I will be seeing Twilight part two, as well...

But in the mean time, we live in the present. San Marcos appears at first impression to be an economically depressed city of 50,000 residents with little integration between the university and the town. One might say, it has a lot of potential for development and investment. We are nestled in the heart of Texas Hill Country, which, while not the Puget Sound to the eye, does provide vistas of rolling green hills. And now that the drought has slightly broken and the grass has rebounded, I am struck at times at how much areas like the adjoining town of Wemberley resemble the hills of Taos, NM. But Wemberley is a small town where everybody knows your business, and maybe we are city mice at heart, better suited for South Austin.

I grow to love my work more every day. Today, several of the curators met to arrange photographs for the upcoming Nueva Luz show that opens officially on October 17. It includes work by Bill Wittliff, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Marco Antonio Cruz, Graciela Iturbide, Kate Breakey, Robb Kendrick, Tina Modotti, Edward Weston, Joel-Peter Witkin, and more. Any of these artists on their own are complete and total powerhouses.

I help with collections development on both photographic collections and literary archives, as well as general collections development for books and various materials related to the collections' artists. The website for the Collections will relaunch sometime later this year. The mock-ups for the site reflect the quality of the collections and we are all hopeful that it will come to completion sooner than later. Construction, renovation, and expansion continue and hopefully the galleries will be re-installed by early October. Friday, I travel to Austin with a co-worker to pick up archives from Mike Cox.

Tentative plans to be at AWP 2010 in Denver.

For those of you who know the poet Jack Myers of Dallas - he's been very ill. Write to him and send him and Thea some good cheer. He's waiting for a liver transplant.

RISD is going to be hiring for a new creative writing position. Someone who can teach theory as well as writing. If the E. Coast is your thing, then you should apply.

Thanks to Coconut Diaries for putting us up while we were in transition and for putting up with us while we continue to transit as mercury sits in retrograde.

Next month: Iowa City trip to the U of Iowa, the famous Workshop, and the IWP. All the writers that were on the China trip - Eni Mushisijia, Guo Wenbin, Wang Hua, Jin Renshun, Nie Le, and Cao Youyun - will be with us again. Riding camels in the Taklamaklan seems so very far now. And Edward will be there too, who is moving to Austin with his wife Elizabeth at the end of the year.

Tentative plans for a Dallas reading in Feb. 2010 with Jerry Kelley.

The season premier of Biggest Loser made me cry. Well, every episode of that show elicits tears - people doing the hard work of recovering through addiction and years of self-abuse and stuffing one's feelings. There's one contestant on the show that we were smitten with - Abby - who lost her husband and two children in a car accident two years ago. She lost 15 pounds this first week/weigh in. We find ourselves rooting for everyone on the show. And I find myself wondering if on my worst days, I would make a stellar personal trainer. All that yelling and such.