Hello Happy People! How was ya weekend? I had a ball despite a headache that will not quit. Started out with a little poetry exchange with a poet/friend on Friday & was quite the collabo. I’m sure there’ll be more, right? LOL (I hear John Legend signing, “Another Again”) I’ll have my people call your people, a’ight?

Saturday morning, I was a guest on an internet radio show hosted by my friend Truth Theory along with poets Mocha Sistah and Marc Lacey. The topic? “LOVE”. It’s the second radio show I did where LOVE was the topic. *sigh* Had a ball though – it was a spirited, energizing, thought-provoking session (well, from my perspective anyway). Truth worked in some spoken word from new and seasoned poets and each of his guests (Mocha, Marc & myself) shared a piece from our latest collections. It was a fun hour + about 20-30 minutes of “after the show”.

Then we moved into Saturday evening…and the whole reason behind the “DOCTOR, DOCTOR” caption. Is there a doctor in the house???? No?

Well, there’s one in my family now. Yes indeed. As of Monday, June 25, 2007 @ 11:30am….

FAVCUS#1 is now “FavCus#1, PhD”….”Dr. FavCus#1”

Yea!!! I’m so very proud of my cousin and excited for her. The culmination of a portion of her dream. Take a bow FavCus#1, take a bow. You earned it. Girlfriend went straight from getting her BS in Accounting to a M.Ed and finally to her Doctorate in Higher Ed Administration. Won’t be long before she’ll be “Dean FavCus#1″ - I’m claiming that right now! She got her Masters and Doctorate while working very demanding full-time jobs (each resplendent with an array of ab-so-frigging-lutely CRAZY a** people & situations). AND while being a single mom to FavCus#2, “the Princess” – a beautiful, well-rounded, well-adjusted daughter (surprisingly well-adjusted considering the colorful characters on BOTH sides of her family…but most especially her daddy’s.)

It can be done folks. It takes focus, dedication, some folks you can call up and say, “I just need you to listen to this and see if it makes sense” or “can you watch the Munchkin while I’m in class?” or “I NEED A DRINK”. Sometimes all that happened simultaneously. And for the record, there were times when I got the call & I had no frigging clue what FavCus#1 was talking about but I hung in there. Girlfriend would call me all excited about some comparative analysis about trends in higher ed and this policy and that and you know my eyes were glazed over. I rose to the occasion though – either asking questions until I got it or giving the appropriate signals…or just laughing at her excitement.

We laughed at the times I had to talk her out of smacking somebody or the times she had to talk me down…like that whacky “transcriptionist” who left out complete words, changed words (we still don’t know how she transcribed the word “condom” into a sentence) and left out complete sentences. There were folks who were on smack-down rotation but since I am not convinced that we still don’t need to kick their a**, I won’t name them.

FavCus#1 has ALWAYS been a brainiac – ALWAYS. Poised. Confident. Ask her what she wanted to be when she was young – I’m talking very young. Go ‘head. Ask her. I’ll tell you – she wanted to be on the board of directors for some company. Now, who in de hell wants to do that when they’re young? Who even knows what a board of directors is when they’re young?? Nobody but a brainiac. (Now go head and ask her ‘bout the time she cried cause the pastor talked about how God would forgive us 7×7 times & she being the ultimate math wiz at very young age knew 7×7 =49 so she just KNEW she was in trouble. ROFL)

I have no words to adequately convey how proud I am of her, of having her as family, and more importantly, for having her as my friend.

That’s why we gathered on Saturday evening. To celebrate this major accomplishment, to show her that we support her, and to celebrate her “brainiacedness”. Now to be sure, some of us came along for the bonus of “junk brownies”, a fish fry, and the infamous rum punch & mojitos.

We gathered together for fun, fellowship and to celebrate FavCus#1’s accomplishment and had a b-a-l-l. Every year we have a few newbies show up – bless their hearts. Most of us hung out until well after midnight (as usual), laughing at ourselves, sharing information, talking about books, music, movies. Conversation ebbed and flowed all evening and I don’t think we missed a single topic.

We were missing a few regulars. My “crush” moved all the way across the country to Cali. And Big Daddy, you are SO off the invite list. How you gonna ask us if we having the cook-out and then NOT show?? Man…what kind of love is that?? I’m just saying.

Anywho, I made my way home around 2:30, crawled into bed, and had the craziest dream. Might have been the headache I was nursing before the festivities began. It couldn’t possibly be the mojitos, repeated glasses of rum punch, and whatever that concoction was that E cooked up. Nawwww….couldn’t be that.

Off to nurse this headache that won’t go away & try to get in a few hours of sleep. Hope your weekend was as much fun as mine!