this is an excellent life.
i am grateful for all of the opportunities to witness/participate/journey and find that it's all love anyway

admittedly, i've been running from this space like a debtor from a lender. so much time has passed since my last entry that this coming to the keyboard feels more like a confessional than entry. (forgive me blogger, for i have sinned. it has been nearly 2 months since my last entry.) suffice it to say i need to be writing more... here, anyway. the good news about that is that (1) i HAVE actually been writing more-just not here-and (2) maybe i am just busy living life than writing about it. but i have missed coming here with all of my sweet somethings and rantings; with that "y'all know what i did last week?" excitement in ever keystroke. ah, the rush!

so what's been going on? or what hasn't been going on? thanks to denea's and ahmad's generosity, last thursday thru saturday (EARLY) i was in atlanta for the 2007 AWP conference. (i am hoping manda-manda and frank x and dante and remika and others with cameras will forward pix soon. dam, i need a digi-camera!) anyhoo, it was really an amazing couple of days, topped off by the fact that we stayed at my old college brotha-from-anotha-motha's house. before then, i hadn't seen ted since i graduated from "Skegee" in 1993. THAT, my friends, is the magic of myspace. don't have an account? GET ONE!) but i digress... is it enough to say that we had a CC reading on thursday night at the art gallery in the cosby center at spelman college? i was full from the gate! THEN, i sent 2 nights eating GLADYS KNIGHT & RON WINANS CHICKEN AND WAFFLES (grits and buckwheat waffles, man!). i did FINALLY actually make it to conference stuff, and attended some EXCELLENT panels. the best part was getting loved up by my favorite writer-peoples. (after writing a list and deleting it, i decided i will not mention names. you know who you are cuz you can feel me thinking about you all in the telling.) i am PARTICULARLY grateful to a few PARTICULAR people for thinking of me and including me and the huggings and kissing my cheeks and talking to me and breaking bread with me, for making my people your people and not making me out to be a liar about what amazing people you are. you all made my trip so much more memorable. overall, the atl was the isht!

sekou sundiata was in town performing in his show "51st dream state" at the hogg auditorium on ut's campus on the 29th of feb. AMAZING!!! i took the kids with me. it was too much for them on a school night. but i am glad they had the exposure, if nothing else. they were troopers. (did i mention that sekou is a genius?!) his poems. the muses/singers. the dancer filmed and projected on the large fabrics behind the full band. important work! it was beautiful!

the week before atl were the SAAW events in austin. that weekend was amazing but i was PRAYING all the way through it. roger bonair agard brought his show, masquerade: poems of calypso and home. (just when you thought he couldn't get any more amazing, he does a one-man poetry concert.) that was thursday, feb 22nd. friday, ana lara, curtis crisler and roger read and signed books at follett's intellectual property. i hear that went well. (my son was VERY sick that weekend so i was actually unable to make it to that one. but it was hosted in excellence by dr. joni jones/omi oshun olomo, as it was in conjunction with a conference and reception through the CAAAS.)

PHEW!!! see... this is why i run. my fingers are cramping and my mind is scrambling for the next remembering...

OH!!! that would be my trip to cali! i went to cali february 13-18. orchestrated a surprise birthday party for sweetiebubu that went off swimmingly! california was too good to me, i tell you. he had no idea i was coming, which was the first surprise. then, when i bamboozled him to coming to dinner, only to find out there were 25 other people at the table waiting on him... THAT was priceless! but being with my dad and my brother too. i didn't realize how much loving masculine energy i have been REALLY missing in my life.

oh! and my bestest friend, charla, came to visit just in time for my daughter's 10th birthday party sleepover. she and i proclaimed ourselves "bestest" friends nearly at the same age my daughter is now. we have been up, down and through it, and i STILL feel like we are learning so much about each other. my son's birthday is this friday. he'll be 8. GOSH they are growing up so fast. both will have topped my height, i am certain, by the ends of their fifth grade years. compassion, sensitivity, creativity, feet, chins and dance ability... they might have gotten from me but height!? it's all "they daddy." anyway, charla will be back later this month. we are going to do something fun with the kids and hopefully laugh until our guts hit the floor like we did last time. THAT was priceless.

other than all of that... i've been actively engaged in understanding "intention," as per my intention coach (props to sheree ross) and doing things around "the secret." if you don't know, where have you been? life-changing stuff y'all. (also check out "what the bleep do we know" on DVD.) all of that is to say that these days i have been busy espousing to the universe what i intend so that it can deliver. it really is amazing how the law of attraction works. i have been balancing that with prayer/meditation and reading. right now it's bell hooks's "all about love." life work is so necessary y'all.

funny thing is, even with all that i have written here, there is so much more going on. good things simmering beneath each word. but no real words to articulate it all. i am looking forward to lots of things to come. the international women's day readings at resistencia bookstore (7-9pm), though that is also my son's sleepover night so... here we go again. sharon bridgforth is hosting SEXY SUNDAYS at cafe mundi once a month (next one is March 24th). if you just want to go have a good ole time, i HIGHLY recommend this event. good people, good music (thanks to DJ Wu).

that felt like diarrhea! (you know how it all just starts coming out and on the other side of it you feel slightly nauseated but a little better because you got it all out?) forgive me y'all. this is what your similes turn into when you've been away so long. i will REALLY try to write more often so i don't have to subject you to foul-smelling similes anymore.

you KNOW i love you. and that's it.
shia SHABAZZ (fa-evah-evah!)