Meanwhile, back at My Broken Down Upstate City, the blogger is not dead, merely discouraged. Does anyone give a damn about Utica? Or Central New York?

Let me quote:

If the land has a secret it is

that is has no secret.

Everywhere I see the uneven

and careless gardens,

crooked porches, abandoned cars

and washers, faded signs.

In the diners the talk turns

from the rain to cancer,

from cancer to the lotto.

The eyes look calmly,

tiredly out of the heads.

from "My Own Country" by Cindy Day 

That's the trick--NOT to get discouraged. Utica can be a discouraging place, depressed, behind the times, stuck. But I wanted to blog about where I live, good and bad. I wanted to celebrate the details of daily life here. Especially the people. The people and the food and the architecture and the landscape. So onward and upward! The one thing I may have learned about blogging is that you can't stop. Blogs prosper by staying current.