good times in the ATL with very few pictures for now
i am slowly recovering from a few days of eating, drinking and being merry in the ATL. i woke up this morning with a sore throat that can either be connected to the dry heat coming from our radiators overnight OR from the funk that manifested itself via green snot in bailey's nose. either way, i am pumping my body with vitamin c and echinacea all day long. i have a long week of party preparation and such so i can't get sick.
our trip to atlanta was great. i am a bit exhausted from it but i had such a good time i think its worth it. i flew into atlanta on wednesday afternoon and headed to dawn's for a little lunch and chatting before i had to put on my work clothes and head to campus. bailey is growing up so quickly. he has these adorable little curls above his hears and he has like 100 teeth now. not really, but you get my drift. he also sings and babbles which is just delightful. dawn seemed a bit worn out b/c bailey had been up pretty much every hour on the hour not feeling well. after bailey went down for a nap, she and i chatted over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. it was nice to have a little time to ourselves. i got to my office to find out the system was down and therefore i could not access any of my work files on my computer NOR could i print anything from my computer. i tried to do a little breathing and then made the decision that approval of last meeting's minutes would have to wait until the next meeting. that evening i had dinner with layli, one of my committee members. we were both so exhausted i opted to not talk about my dissertation chapter i had turned into her b/c nothing she would say would actually go into my brain. she seemed very okay with this and we just ate and talked like friends. it was very nice to see her and hear about all that she has going on. she is wicked smart. from there i went back to dawn's and we sat on their new fancy couch from ebay and talked and drank the wine leftover from my meeting. again, this is the kind of stuff i love when i visit. just little secret time to really connect. after that we both totally crashed.
my meetings started at 9am on thursday, so i was up and out pretty early. what was cool is that as i was leaving to go to campus, dawn was putting bailey down for his morning nap so that meant she was able to get a little more sleep. all my stuff on thursday went fine. after my event in the afternoon i got to meet with saralyn, another committee member and she gave me some really valuable feedback on my chapter. like layli, i got to chat some about life with saralyn, which was really great. she is also wicked smart and has all this history of queerness in the south and lesbian feminism just in her brain. i told her someday i want to do a project about dialogues across generations of queer women. we both agreed that must take place AFTER the dissertation is over. amen to that. what was most helpful is that she assured me my work is not a big pile of poo. her input re-energized me and i hope to get to making some of the changes she suggested this week. today i am trying to just get back into the swing of things, get unpacked and organized and start preparing for jes's party on friday.
after saralyn i went to sarah and kim's and hung out. again i got some special alone time with them (and my dog lovergirl ruthie ru ru). we just sat around and shot the shit and it felt like i never moved to brooklyn. gas prices are rising this winter so sarah and kim are trying to build more fires and turn the heat down some. to keep ruthie warm they have incorporated some "woobies" onto her bed. these are really just old terrycloth towels, but she loves them and they keep her warm. here is a picture of ruthie with a woobie cape.
around 9:30pm we went to pick up jes from the airport and headed to el myr for a burrito. jes was on the edge of losing her shit by the time we got to el myr b/c she had tried to get on an earlier flight which then got delayed and once the flight did get going she had not one, not two, but THREE rows of small children in front of her. apparently one of them in front of her spent most of the flight squawking like a bird and once he fell asleep his precious big sister pinched him so he woke up and started to squawk/wail again. my fish burrito was delicious, but jes wasn't feeling hers so much. not enough fish i guess. after that we went to trackside to play darts. i think jes and i won, but i can't really remember. on friday morning jes and i went to ria's with nikki and her gfriend christina. here is a pic of the three of them:
and here is cute one of just jes and nikki:
nikki and christina showed us their cute matching tattoos: pink and purple cupcakes on their bellies. and nikki is in the process of getting madonna tattooed on her left calf. i did not get a picture of it, but it is huge. she said after four and half hours she had to quit. she's pretty hardcore like that. jes and i spent the rest of the afternoon running around town, she studied some while i worked and we also stopped by dawn's to hang out with her and bailey some. originally we were supposed to have dinner with dawn and bailey that evening, but bailey was running a fever so she had to cancel. it actually worked out because then jes was able to get her hair cut and we were able to have dinner with sarah and kim that night b/c we could wait until they were done with work. during our visit with dawn and bails he said "nana." now i am certain he has no idea what that means, or its significance to me, but it darn near made me cry. that evening we ate at taqueria del sol and it was everything that jes had hoped for and more. i enjoyed my fish taco which was less greasy than i remember and the salsa trio filled my belly with love and heat- especially the green tomatillo salsa. it seemed extra spicy. after that we hung out with nikki and christina some and then headed to the Clermont, this old school strip club.
jes had heard that it was closing, so she really really wanted to go. it's really non traditional there in that its only like 3$ to get in and the strippers don't look like manufactured barbie dolls. some are old, some are fat, some are way too skinny and some are tattooed. most, i would argued, are cocaine users, or as jes would say "geeked out on coke." that part made me very sad. eventually we made our way to the circular bar where we had a front row seat for the dancer on top of the bar. i think most of the ladies liked us because we tipped and because we were not looking at them like they were tasty pork chops. our time there was weird for so many reasons, but i was most taken aback by how seldom i see real women naked- i mean aside from me and jes, you know. i have become so accustomed to only seeing thin young women with traditionally attractive bodies that when i see small breasts or thick thighs or cellulite aflapping i am given pause. they were all beautiful in their realness, but i just forget that i almost never see that. the other weird thing, or thing that gave me pause was some of the men's reaction to the four of us saddled up to the bar. none of us were there with men and the male patrons didn't really know what to do with that. there were other non-stripper women, but they were all with at least one man. it felt very disruptive in a good way and i think for some of the dancers, we were a welcome break from the nasty "bend over for me and i will give you this DOLLAR" deal. by the end of the night, i was exhausted and i fell fast asleep in our delicious white bed.
i have to go and move the car back to in front of our apartment. i will write more later.
our trip to atlanta was great. i am a bit exhausted from it but i had such a good time i think its worth it. i flew into atlanta on wednesday afternoon and headed to dawn's for a little lunch and chatting before i had to put on my work clothes and head to campus. bailey is growing up so quickly. he has these adorable little curls above his hears and he has like 100 teeth now. not really, but you get my drift. he also sings and babbles which is just delightful. dawn seemed a bit worn out b/c bailey had been up pretty much every hour on the hour not feeling well. after bailey went down for a nap, she and i chatted over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. it was nice to have a little time to ourselves. i got to my office to find out the system was down and therefore i could not access any of my work files on my computer NOR could i print anything from my computer. i tried to do a little breathing and then made the decision that approval of last meeting's minutes would have to wait until the next meeting. that evening i had dinner with layli, one of my committee members. we were both so exhausted i opted to not talk about my dissertation chapter i had turned into her b/c nothing she would say would actually go into my brain. she seemed very okay with this and we just ate and talked like friends. it was very nice to see her and hear about all that she has going on. she is wicked smart. from there i went back to dawn's and we sat on their new fancy couch from ebay and talked and drank the wine leftover from my meeting. again, this is the kind of stuff i love when i visit. just little secret time to really connect. after that we both totally crashed.
my meetings started at 9am on thursday, so i was up and out pretty early. what was cool is that as i was leaving to go to campus, dawn was putting bailey down for his morning nap so that meant she was able to get a little more sleep. all my stuff on thursday went fine. after my event in the afternoon i got to meet with saralyn, another committee member and she gave me some really valuable feedback on my chapter. like layli, i got to chat some about life with saralyn, which was really great. she is also wicked smart and has all this history of queerness in the south and lesbian feminism just in her brain. i told her someday i want to do a project about dialogues across generations of queer women. we both agreed that must take place AFTER the dissertation is over. amen to that. what was most helpful is that she assured me my work is not a big pile of poo. her input re-energized me and i hope to get to making some of the changes she suggested this week. today i am trying to just get back into the swing of things, get unpacked and organized and start preparing for jes's party on friday.
after saralyn i went to sarah and kim's and hung out. again i got some special alone time with them (and my dog lovergirl ruthie ru ru). we just sat around and shot the shit and it felt like i never moved to brooklyn. gas prices are rising this winter so sarah and kim are trying to build more fires and turn the heat down some. to keep ruthie warm they have incorporated some "woobies" onto her bed. these are really just old terrycloth towels, but she loves them and they keep her warm. here is a picture of ruthie with a woobie cape.
around 9:30pm we went to pick up jes from the airport and headed to el myr for a burrito. jes was on the edge of losing her shit by the time we got to el myr b/c she had tried to get on an earlier flight which then got delayed and once the flight did get going she had not one, not two, but THREE rows of small children in front of her. apparently one of them in front of her spent most of the flight squawking like a bird and once he fell asleep his precious big sister pinched him so he woke up and started to squawk/wail again. my fish burrito was delicious, but jes wasn't feeling hers so much. not enough fish i guess. after that we went to trackside to play darts. i think jes and i won, but i can't really remember. on friday morning jes and i went to ria's with nikki and her gfriend christina. here is a pic of the three of them:
and here is cute one of just jes and nikki:
nikki and christina showed us their cute matching tattoos: pink and purple cupcakes on their bellies. and nikki is in the process of getting madonna tattooed on her left calf. i did not get a picture of it, but it is huge. she said after four and half hours she had to quit. she's pretty hardcore like that. jes and i spent the rest of the afternoon running around town, she studied some while i worked and we also stopped by dawn's to hang out with her and bailey some. originally we were supposed to have dinner with dawn and bailey that evening, but bailey was running a fever so she had to cancel. it actually worked out because then jes was able to get her hair cut and we were able to have dinner with sarah and kim that night b/c we could wait until they were done with work. during our visit with dawn and bails he said "nana." now i am certain he has no idea what that means, or its significance to me, but it darn near made me cry. that evening we ate at taqueria del sol and it was everything that jes had hoped for and more. i enjoyed my fish taco which was less greasy than i remember and the salsa trio filled my belly with love and heat- especially the green tomatillo salsa. it seemed extra spicy. after that we hung out with nikki and christina some and then headed to the Clermont, this old school strip club.
jes had heard that it was closing, so she really really wanted to go. it's really non traditional there in that its only like 3$ to get in and the strippers don't look like manufactured barbie dolls. some are old, some are fat, some are way too skinny and some are tattooed. most, i would argued, are cocaine users, or as jes would say "geeked out on coke." that part made me very sad. eventually we made our way to the circular bar where we had a front row seat for the dancer on top of the bar. i think most of the ladies liked us because we tipped and because we were not looking at them like they were tasty pork chops. our time there was weird for so many reasons, but i was most taken aback by how seldom i see real women naked- i mean aside from me and jes, you know. i have become so accustomed to only seeing thin young women with traditionally attractive bodies that when i see small breasts or thick thighs or cellulite aflapping i am given pause. they were all beautiful in their realness, but i just forget that i almost never see that. the other weird thing, or thing that gave me pause was some of the men's reaction to the four of us saddled up to the bar. none of us were there with men and the male patrons didn't really know what to do with that. there were other non-stripper women, but they were all with at least one man. it felt very disruptive in a good way and i think for some of the dancers, we were a welcome break from the nasty "bend over for me and i will give you this DOLLAR" deal. by the end of the night, i was exhausted and i fell fast asleep in our delicious white bed.
i have to go and move the car back to in front of our apartment. i will write more later.
posted by dj love at 1:01 PM
2 Comments:
so, the madonna tattoo. Is it Madonna the singer, or The Madonna, like Jesus' mom? Either way, that's crazy.
i mean madonna the 47 year old with hot legs this 32 year old would die for not baby jesus's mom. i mean she may have had nice legs too, but i didn't know her.
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