i dunno if i shld be doin this at work or not. i need to learn how to erase any & all traces of tihs blawg address. caint be havin the Man all up in my bidness like that. but im sittin here w/ nothin to do cause robin's outta town in las vegas.
but yeah. i got lots to talk abt. --------------------------- brittany had her baby!
Assata Khalil (Camille.. i forget which) showed up March 21st at around 12:30 or so. 7 lbs, 11 ounces
20 inches. !!
she'll be taller than me by the time she's 5.
i havent seen them yet. i cant get up w/ britt on the phone lately. soon tho.
when brittany called to tell me, there was so much awe and wonderment in her voice. she'll be a great mother. she's too strong not to be.
this still doesnt make sense to me though. its like she just grew up over night. id be lying if i said i didnt miss her. i dont feel like there's much room for me now.
back when britt first started to drift away, richard (her boyfriend/baby daddy) told me that britt told him that if she did get pregnant, if she was to ask anyone to be godmother to her child, it would be me.
i doubt she'd ask me now, though.
still! new babies are dope yall. im happy for her :o) -------------------- my uncle bobby is still holding on. my mother and i went to the hospital to see him on monday, i believe. we got there during unvisiting hours though and couldn't actually go back to see him. he's on a respirator and conscious and trying to talk and still recognizing people. somehow i think the dr's have underestimated his strength. and his stubbornness.
we visited w/ everyone in the waiting room instead. it was like a family reunion. little cousins i used to babysit are now as tall as me, soon to be taller. all his children were there--dorothy, earlene, morgan, murrell (who came down from VA/DC)... and im forgetting someone. but they were there too. so was sandy, morgan's wife, and their two children, brianna and regina; burtram and his wife and two children (burtee burt used to do my hair--he got skills but he's slow and charges too much and is overrun with chickenheads tryna get they hurr did for the club erryweekend); cousin felicia and her two children, kevin and erica; delon, dorothy's son; oh! dewayne was the other of bobby's kids i was forgetting. he was there too. i think that's all.
man that waiting room was loud as hell. there was a list of waiting room rules and regulations on the wall, each of which they had carefully broken.
1. (paraphrasing) Be quiet. -- they broke that all up as soon as they walked in, i just know it. 2. Don't rearrange waiting room furniture. -- the chair i sat in was directly in the middle of the room in front of the tv. behind it was a chairless space on the wall. ...yeah. 3. No outside food. -- you should have seen the long john silver's bags and cups and containers in there. i felt like i was in the actual restaurant.
speaking of food, cousin dorothy's in a wheelchair now. she's like, huge. unhealthily huge. morbidly so. my granny said she's got some kind of blood disease, which my mama says is actually a glandular disease. i dont know what it does, but obviously its got to do with her weight. my mother says that she cant lose any because of it, but i refuse to believe that if she'd just change the way she eats she wouldn't lose one single ounce of a pound. like, why are you eating long john silver's? why are you not 50 yet and in a wheelchair? come on, now.
i hope she gets better.
tennie was in a wheelchair too. but she's old and getting around for her is hard. she's still hanging in there. she looked pretty down when i saw her, but she was probably tired. there was another old lady there too, one i dont think i'd met before. i suspicion that she was inez, uncle bobby's sister.
we walked in and everybody gushed over my hair. ive been getting that aLOT lately. the mailman came in here yesterday and said something about it. i saw tresa 2 days ago after not seeing her for awhile and that's the first thing she said. the only difference is that ive been wearing it super straight lately (there's a picture of it in the okp directory for those hip to its existence)
dude speakin of that why did someone from the boards see it and say i look like janice, dr. teeth's girlfriend on the muppets?? LOL! and he's right! lol
anyway we did that for awhile and i caught up w/ them all. i hadnt seen them all in one place in one time for the longest. i was surprised to find that burt and his wife had another baby. i had no idea they were expecting. and yall.. this baby is GOR.GEOUS. omg.. okay, b/t me and you, burt and his wife arent that attractive. especially burt. and they both have tremeeeeeendous underbites. their first daughter, unfortunately, looks just like burtram :o( but this new baby looks adopted. for real. on that side of the family there's a weird gene that surfaces in their children every once in awhile, not one that causes albinoism, but its very close to that, i think. burt and his wife both have dark skin. i wouldnt call them dark skinned, perse, but looking at them there's no way you'd think they'd have a baby as golden as this little girl. she looks mixed, wavy brown hair, light eyes and all. the same happened with brianna, sandy and morgan's little girl. aside from facial features, u'd never think she was their child.
its odd.
anyway, we visited there with them and never got to see uncle bobby. my mama was mad b/c my granny wouldnt go. she claimed it was because her legs were hurting so bad, but those same hurting legs never stop her from gardening and climbing on chairs and doing other things she shouldn't be doing. she just didn't want to go and she used them as an excuse. i can understand her not wanting to be there--though i dont think its because she hates hospitals or hates to see uncle bobby like that, i think she just didnt want to leave the house b/c she never wants to go anywhere but to church and to walgreens and to krogers. when my granny was in the hospital, yall, my aunt tennie was up there every.single.day, and my granny was soooooo mean to her, cussin at her tellin her to go home and carryin on. but my aunt tennie stayed with her cause she loves her, and now that tennie's husband is dying and she needs her sister, the only living relative left of their generation, she's not gonna go? that's selfish. my mother told her so. she went to see him and tennie on wednesday and i was proud of her.
so, we're sort of just keeping vigil and praying and waiting around to see what happens. i never pray for god to keep him here. i halfway think that would be a selfish thing to do given his health; i dont want him to stay here suffering for our benefit. im not praying for him to die, either. im just praying for god to keep watch over uncle bobby day and night, and for the strength for us to understand that in the end what we want doesnt matter & that its all in god's hands now, & we gotta trust that what happens has already been sanctioned to happen.
so that's that.
oooh wait, no its not. so cousin felicia has invited me to an easter party on sunday. i sincerely dont wanna go. dude, who has easter parties? i guess it makes sense, ppl have christmas parties every yr. but an easter party? me and a buncha drunken 38-40somethings? karaoke? for easter?
..no thanks. -------------------------- speaking of things i dont wanna do...
neicy, my neice's mother, is heavy into this writing and being published business. i cant remember if ive mentioned that here before. but she's written a book. black romance. modern fiction. omar tyree/zane/bebe moore campbell stuff. i hate that genre with every inch of my literary heart. i think its great that she's writing though b/c i love the written word. i just really hate them when they come together to form books titled "Baby Mama Drama" and "Let the Church Say 'Amen'" and "Sistagirlfriendhoneychile's Blues," etc.
so she's written this book with such a title. she's got some friends at work who have been shopping around their manuscripts. neicy likes to write and likes to read, so she wrote one too. now she's looking in to getting an agent and all those other steps to getting published. but first things first: its gotta be edited.
guess who's been commissioned to give it a read through and make some corrections.
*points to self*
i read the first 50 pages last night. i wont say that its bad. instead i'll say that it fits perfectly in with those sort of books. honestly, her writing style isnt as advanced as i think it should be for honest respectable publication. the sad thing is, though, it would probably sell. and that's what she wants. so, im doin it for her. im not making any big abstract complicated suggestions or being 100% honest in how i truly feel. my mama says to let an agent be the one to do that. for not im just making technical corrections, like grammar, word usage, stuff like that, and being encouraging. cause i mean writing a book isnt easy, and this is an admirable avenue she's chosen to embark on, one that i have not, as of yet, had the confidence to do. plus black people barely be reading books these days, let alone writin em. so its fine. im thinkin ill zip through it, throw in some commas, give it back, and be done with it.
until the ride home yesterday afternoon.
before i start w/ this portion of the story, let me go on record as saying that somehow this is all gene's fault. i think he jinxed me. gene the jink. he had mad jokes and ridicules for me about all this yesterday, and then i get in the car and neicy's handin me some printed emails she got from author anita diggs (who also writes such books). so blah blah blah, it all comes down to the National Book Club Conference in atlanta in august and she's really excited and wants to go and im the only other person she knew who'd want to go and she wants me to go with her.
i suspect that at this pt, you're thinking "..so? you like reading and you like books. this should be fun for you." yes, my pretties, it should be fun for me. especially since one of my most favoritest authors of all time, the illustrious walter mosely (!!!!) will be there. but. Zane will be there too. the mere reading of her name makes me wanna throw up in my mouth. so will Terry McMillian, who i blame for this whole genre fiasco for some reason. also appearing are the following authors to discuss their best works--
Mary Monroe - "God Don't Like Ugly," "God Still Don't Like Ugly"
(these are the actual titles, folks. im not lyin to u)
Dr. Bertice Berry (remember her?) -- "Sckraight from the Ghetto," "You Might be Ghetto If," "You STILL Ghetto" <-- not novels, but i mean come on. **confession: i have one of those books. it was pretty funny.
Trisha R. Thomas - Nappily Ever After
and THIS ONE TAKES THE CAKE, GUYS--
Jamise Dames -- "Mama's Baby Daddy's Maybe"
....
shoot me now. just go head and get it over with.
i mean, wtf does that even mean? 'mama's baby daddy's maybe?' huh?
so. i sincerely dont want to drive all the way to atlanta to go pay $230+ dollars to convene with these people. not at all. im hoping that the space will fill up before she actually wants to put a deposit down. i need to tell her that i just dont want to go. its gonna feel like im bein selfish and shittin on her dreams though. argh!
so thanks a lot, gene, for ruining my life. ---------------------------- school.
im going to try really, really hard to what i need to do re: where to go to school as opposed to what i WANT to do. where i want to be may not be the best place for me. im still waiting word from columbia. that'll be what really shapes my decision. but the road i need to take just may break my heart, and that's something im trying to ready myself for, just in case.
who knows what will happen though. im not carving anything out in stone.
but i need to be levelheaded and ready and im trying.
wish me luck. --------------------- god.
ive been doing a lot of second guessing for the wrong reasons lately. i wont go into detail here. or maybe i will later on if i have time; i could do another entry today. but sometimes it feels like im letting things get in the way of what i believe and losing focus and wanting to go places my faith and purity of heart cant follow. i need to put everything back into perspective. its a lot to deal with sometimes and i always end up feeling weak and stupid when i think and talk about it lately. loving god hasnt been enough for me lately. ive begun to feel like there HAS to be something else there--a church or some special ceremony or an easter egg or something-- to make it really count. which i guess isnt a bad thing to think or feel, but my reasons are strictly coming from outside influences and not from anything inside of me. and i dont mean that somebody's been verbally telling me that what i believe isnt good enough. nobdoy's been ministering to me or anything. im drawing things from lots of places and they've sort of just built up to form certain undesirable complexes. anyway, not to stray too far from whatever pt i was trying to make, honest love of god should be the binding tie, in my mind. that's the final destination and the different roads we take to get there shouldn't matter. but obviously, if people believed that we wouldn't have all the disagreeing and fighting to be the "chosen people" that we do now.
i dunno.
i am starting to forget myself and my priorities though.
but i havent forgotten god. on the contrary, god's been on my mind more than ever these past few months.
i need to flush all these thoughts out. i will later.
i feel like im carrying so much with me that i need to let go of, both here and elsewhere. i feel so slow and sluggish lately. short of crack and diseased sperm, ive been putting everything bad into my body lately, it seems. i feel like i need to just clean myself out. spring cleaning style. hopefully ill start on that this weekend with going to the fricken grocery store so i dont have to eat out night after night. and im gonna wash my hair this weekend too. it needs it, and in the event that the bohemians are right & hair really does hold in energy, in my case negative energy, i just may kill two birds with one stone. --------------------------- in conclusion,
*moons the bastards who gave Louisville a #4 seeding*
we may not get no farther than this, but we've at least shown you that u're fulla crap and had absolutely no idea what you were doing.
