BACK HOME

Today I went back home to New Orleans to visit for Easter and my mom's birthday, which happen to be the same day. The ride wasn't bad at all, but that's because I'm more than used to it by now. I was making great time until I got to Slidell (right outside of New Orleans...literally across a long bridge) and came to a complete stop. There's nothing worse than going on a long trip and getting so close that you can spit on your destination, but cant get there. Ugh!!!

I told my brother's girlfriend, Stacia, that I would go to a spot that has poetry night with her and her friend. The traffic put a little delay on my ride. But I put on some gospel grooves to keep me focused and in a positive frame of mind. So the part of the ride that would've normally taken 15 minutes took me an hour and 30 minutes. WHOO!!!! Yeah I had to REALLY try to sing and breathe easy...cause I wanted to scream. But I didnt let that mess up my night.

When I finally made it to my grandmother's house (Maw Maw= mom's mom), which was lively, but surprisingly not as much as usual. My grandparents were at church, my big little brother, Ryan, wasn't there, my two youngest brothers were playing with a cousin who was spending the night, my mom was chit-chatty as usual, and another cousin was there.

Oh yeah...***SIDE NOTE***=Ama is the town that my grandmother lives in, where I spent most of my childhood summers and holidays. Its right outside of New Orleans and is so small that everyone is related. Its the kind of thing where if you like someone it might be your grandfather's brother's 2nd wife's nephew....and it will be traced out. The kind of place where the first question your family asks about someone is "who are they're people". Having a car is a necessity, yellow buses are the mode of transportation for every child in school, walking to a "grocery" store is not an option, and you can drive in and out of the city in 10 min and completely miss it. Home sweet home!!!

Back to the evening...I chilled, talked, ate, and got ready to go to poetry nite. I went to Stacia's house to meet her and her friend. My brother called me to tell me that he and his friends were gonna come out there too. Cool. We walked up to the place and they were standing outside. First person I saw was my bro...and he gives me a big bear hug. (*smile*I love him). I give all his friends hugs, deyz all grown menz now. One in particular (my flow)...yessir. Moving along....lol

Some of poets were pretty good. One chick in particular definitely needed some therapy, counseling, a few hugs, prayer, anything that would help her anger management issues. The title of her poem was "I hate my boyfriend's baby's momma". WTH!!! And boy...did she hate the woman. She talked about pushing her off a building, killing her, and all other kinds of violent stuff. That one was scary...some of the others were good and positive though. It turned out to be a nice nite.