what's going on

good morning all. i know i owe you several posts, but life has been hectic, so i couldn't get to it until now.

three topics i would like to discuss:

1. my friends and family and their babies and things
2. school starting
3. the love for my friend mel who is in the hospital

so lets get started...

i have been gathering all these photos for the "next time i blog" so here they are.

first up is a picture from my sister's latest sonogram. in it you will see my future niece or nephew. she's due in february and i am very excited!



the little muffin is making my sister queasy and super tired sometimes, but other than that s/he is just doing hir thing growing and growing and growing.

another sweet muffin in my life is my friends tony and laura's son diego. tony and i went to graduate school together and he and his wife moved to memphis after he graduated where he started a teaching job and she started a counseling. here is a picture of their sweet little buddy:



and though i am no longer actually in the brooklyn bat cave, i can still report on my brooklyn suppa club friends. glennda and kim went up to "camp" (glennda's folks cabin in upstate new york) last weekend and here are some pics of them and their baby, bams:





how cute is that puppy? pretty cute yall.

and then lastly, and certainly not leastly, is ali and her new hybrid car. she moved back to columbus, ohio, bought a house AND bought this sweet ride. i am so jelly. thank god a black one was available:



2. school has started and this has meant more work all over for me. first of all, with school started back at my job, that has meant working orientation welcoming new students and their families and job fairs to hire more folks for the bookstore (part of my job) and then also hiring them all online, which is not hard, but there are many steps that you can screw up. this also means that our eight student workers are back in town and i am trying to coordinate their schedules for work. its pretty chaotic in the building i work in too b/c its where the dining hall and all the student activities are, but i am adjusting.

i have also started teaching my women's studies class at a local all women's college. we have only had one class where i just introduced the class and we got to know each other. i have 19 students and they all seem really excited about the class. i am thrilled to really get into it and start hearing their ideas and reading their work. i think its going to be a lot of work, but i am looking forward to it.

3. lastly, i have been inspired by folks here in the atl. see, this friend of ours, mel, got in a very bad motorcycle accident over a week ago and landed up in the icu. things looked really bad early on and they are still pretty much touch and go, but the overwhelming love and positive energy from folks in the community has really kept him going. that, and his unbelievable strength. like many folks in this country, mel doesn't have health insurance, so folks have been throwing fundraisers for him. on wednesday, log jam, this monthly party at this bar mary's in east atlanta, raised money for him. the theme was "beach/pool party." here are some photos from that.

here is a picture of the beautiful poster from the party. mel does drag and his drag name is pee wee hymen (how hilarious is that?):



and here is a pic of jes, katie and nikki (clearly katie dressed up for the party):



and here is one of jes and super blue eyed emma:



and then last night we went to eyedrum for the athens boys choir/katastrophe/team gina show. my crush on gina genius is still in effect. both gina's are hilarious and really talented. they are falling in love with the atl, so that is great, b/c i think it means they will come back and play here more often. this again was partly a fundraiser for mel. there was lots of love going around and everyone had their "i heart melvin" patches on. it was extra nice to see some of the folks who have been at the hospital day in and day out, OUTSIDE of the hospital just having a little fun.

yeah so that is that. i am thrilled to have today AND tomorrow off (thanks labor day). we have more house stuff to do today and some studying as well. i think we might go get breakfast now. happy sunday yall.