I have been one active chick of late. Since I got financial with Zeta again, I have been here there and everywhere. It's nice actually. I missed politicking with my Sorors and just hanging and doing the work of Zeta. I even went to some undergrad events (!) My Sands M who died nearly 2 years ago this May and her chapter has done some great work. They established a scholarship in her name and had a fundraising dinner and it was so strange for me. Being in yet another place I'd been to with her without her just made it all so real to me again. The pain will never go away. I got to see her family which was awesome. They are just grasping the effect M had on so many. So much so that now that she isn't here anymore all the connections have for all intents and purposes evaporated. We don't have to play nice anymore. Oh well.

I was actually strolling at a undergrad party (also hosted by M's chapter) after a bajillion years. I paid for it the next morning that's for sure :) I got hang out with my Sandses (I know it ain't a word, so what) T (the one I refuse to roadtrip with) and her linesister A to go to the aforementioned party. It was a hot mess. There was hardly anyone there and the other Frat that they hosted with didn't mingle with anyone. So of course we had to set it off. We needed booze after so we hit one of the bars in my old neighborhood and got plastered. We had so much fun. It was a nice ego boost for me since there were many cats trying to holla. But no mas. I'm taken fellas! We got there at 3 am, chilled with the bartender and his friend til 5 and then we went to the diner that anyone who hung with M was intro'd to. We had breakfast and I got home at 7 am!

It made me feel so .......alive (and half-dead later of course). I must do it again soon after I recuperate from this go round.


****

So yesterday I'm doing WalkAmerica with my Sorors and I get a call from my Dad telling me that my cousin R just had a baby girl. I was like that's great. Later, I started thinking. Before I go into that lemme give you the back story. My cousin R is from Nigeria (where my Dad is from) and she's some years older than me and she came to the states for work. In Nigeria, she was a medical mucky muck I think. Here, she was a waitress at an African restaurant. After a few months My Dad tells me she married some African dude and is living in Long Island. I was like huh?

She hadn't been here 6 months yet. Next, I hear she's pregnant. I was all er.....ok then. So now back to when I started thinking. My cousin R has accomplished in 2 years what women in this country spend eons trying to do. Get hitched and spit some kids, and live in surburban bliss. I don't know the specifics of it. For all I know the whole marriage is business. Maybe she got tired of hustling and trying to take care of herself and he needed a wife who could hit him off with some kids (Alas the first born is a girl so she automatically lost cool points culturally). Maybe it was love at first sight and the rest is history. But the cynic in me thinks otherwise.

But it leads me to wonder do the sisters in Africa know something we don't? Is it possible to just hop into marriage just for business. Or just to say you've been married. I know it's done here everyday. But it's sort of jarring. It's like she just stepped in it like you accidentally step in shit. I don't know, maybe it is possible to marry somebody you don't know and make a life with them work. But it remains to be seen. All I can do now is call my cousin in the hospital and congratulate her cause she's accomplished plenty.

Not to say that women can only be defined in the terms wife and mother to be validated but for real some women need that validation and have been unable to get it. It's a trip.


Later...........