When I moved to Raleigh from Memphis, I had several Memphians who treated me as a traitor for leaving.

I love Memphis. I really do. But I love Raleigh too (even if they do their ribs funny). The attitude, the vibe is different here. There is a feeling of hope here, a feeling of possibility.  It is not just me. This city dreams. Look at this:

Murders in 2006:

Raleigh: About 20

Memphis: About 200 (!)

Yes, Memphis is bigger, almost twice as big. But not 10 times as big.

I have adjusted well to living here in Raleigh. The weather is nice, the people are friendly and while they don’t eat real bar-b-que, overall the food is good. However, last week I had a huge, overwhelming feeling of homesickness.

I smelled honeysuckle.

I had commented several times on how I had not seen any honeysuckle here. Back home, it is everywhere. Last week, however, I almost fell off my bike when I saw (and smelled) a whole fence row full of it.

My favorite honeysuckle memory: I am about 12 years old. My friend (and virtual sister) Jo and I are out exploring and we decide to walk up Gatewood road to see the pond on the Thompson’s place. Mind you, we had no fishing equipment, but just seeing a pond had to count for something. Anyway…

There was a stretch of maybe 200 yards where both sides of the road were lined with honeysuckle. The smell was a lot like heaven, and Jo and I were sucking the honey out of the flowers. We did not make it to the pond that day; we were captivated by the honeysuckle.

I know I have not been real consistent with my blogging the last few weeks. It is not because I have had nothing to say, but simply because I have not really felt like saying it.

So, anyway, I have had these fits before, and will no doubt again in the future. For the time being, know that I am well, I am loved, I am busy and I miss you all.

Last night, I joined Reunion.com. They had a simple form where they offered to scan my address book and tell me if any of my contacts were also members of the site. No big deal, all the social sites do this…

However, what I did not know, because of a poorly worded website, was that if you were in my inbox and not a member of reunion.com, you were going to get an email, from me, asking you to join.

Not Cool.

So, last night, over 1000 people got a spam email from me, asking them to join this site. I had no idea it was going to happen, and I am sorry it did. I am posting it here, because I don’t want to send another mass email, apologizing for the previous mass email.

Sorry. I will try to be more careful in the future.

I have been a bad blogger…

Well, I am now living in a real, honest to goodness apartment, complete with kitchen and living room. I am sharing it with my friend Drew, who (luckily for him) is not home much. Sadly, there is dang little Living room furniture, so if you live in the triangle and want to get rid of an extra couch or floor lamp or bookcase, give me a shout. I will get pictures of the new place up eventually…

Right now the biggest thing in my life is my work setting up my small faith based non-profit, Love Wins.  Note to would-be non-profits: setting one up from scratch is hard work, and expensive.  A lot of my effort and energy that was spent on this blog is now being directed into feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and visiting the sick. You know, that whole Jesus thing… If you want to know more about what I am doing with the homeless and all, read the blog over there or subscribe to my newsletter.

About a year ago, my friend Richard wrote a list of 100 things most people did not know about him. Thus inspired, I created my own list of things most did not know about me.

Like all lists, things change, so I have updated the list of 100 things you probably did not know about Hugh.

Enjoy.

These days, everybody is going green. We are told to cut emissions, to buy fair trade coffee and to cut our driving. There is so much conflicting information, or at least information that appears to conflict. Where do we turn to get the real scoop?

Here is a site I like a lot. Greener Choices is a website ran by the folks at Consumer Reports. They will give you the straight dope on labels on your food, the truth about alternative automobile fuels and much more.

The last few days have been hard. Without going into too much detail, I found out Monday morning, via email, that someone who was once very important to me had died over the weekend.

I did not even know she had been sick.

Life can be a cruel bastard, sneaking up on you like that. The doubts, the what ifs, the should haves and the could haves will drive you nuts. Knowing that someone you once cared about suffered can be heartbreaking.

Luckily, I have some awesome friends who keep me sane.  For those of you who know all the details, thanks for being there. For those who do not, trust me when I tell you I just do not really want to talk about it right now, maybe later.

Thanks for understanding, and if I am a bit uncommunicative the next few days, I am just working things out, in addition to all the craziness that is normally my life.

I have the coolest friends.

Just a note to let everyone know I am fine and, apart from the crazy amounts of pollen and my sinus’s reaction to it, things are good.

I expect the next few weeks to be crazy as I prepare to move into a new apartment and begin to work on building a sustainable infrastructure behind my work with the  homeless. I will write more about that later, so watch for it.

In short, my life is a bit crazy right now, but a good crazy. I am meeting new friends, expanding my horizons and finding out another world is truly possible.

I have been writing, but not much has made it to the blog… it is a bit disjointed and I would really like to make it a bit cleaner before I release it to all of you.

In the interim… If I owe you an email, I will get to it, I promise. If you owe me an email, don’t stress over it, as life is too short. Instead, hug your kid and get some rest… I probably would not have much time to read it right now anyway.

I saw these on Critter today at the Tweet-up at the Mellow Mushroom on Glenwood.  Are they not frickin’ awesome?