happy birthday, kimani! hello neighbor mitzi and eduardo! congrats on passing your orals, zeli!

last night was erika reliving 25 years of age in 5 hours. (about 5 years per hour. NOT bad.)

so last night after editing a piece for girlsource's annual fundraiser WAVE, i met mitzi and eduardo and zeli for dinner. fumi joined us later. food, music, and dancing sorority girls getting down to some ol' school rnb and soul.

i had an alcoholic beverage.

yes, note that. it doesn't happen often. i had a "besame mucho" at luka's which was a creamy concoction that was okay. i also munched on the prawn hush puppies and some wonderful soup thing.

we girls sang zhane songs and erykah badu and nu shooz "i can't wait", we did an amazing rendition of lisa stansfield's "been around the world."

it was cool.

next stop, san francisco and to be a part of the kimani taylor 33 hours of birthday madness (in honor of his dirty thirty-three). i joined the mini-crew at shine, entered hugging. met up with some of his crew that i know by face. twas good.

i purchased a Voss water. (because i like the glass bottle). i was INCENSED that i was served a 4-dollar bottle of plastic.

WTF???????

i'm trying to reduce my use of plastics since reading this confessions of an economic hit man book because the petro-chemical thing freaks me out. plastic use in the US is crazy. and i am trying to reduce my 4.5 planet footprint that i inflict on the world.

my issue.

i know.

anywho...we decided to caravan to impala in north beach about 1 am. of course we did.

i HATE parking in North Beach and i HATE dealing with the "scene", but I trust my boy Ki, so off we go.

And I find parking and I open my wallet...and damn...I left my tab open at Shine, which means I also left my darn card at Shine.

Back to Shine I drive, pay for my 4 dollar water and then it hits me...

I'm TIRED.

I'm weaving a non-direct route back to north beach, via van ness and pass by the way too cool rouge and parked there on my way to the stockton tunnel is...the GIRLS GONE WILD tour bus.

jesus christ.

light, please turn.

good.

left turn made.

my eyelids are beginning to droop past my cheeks at this point. i am purposely in the slow lane, because my reaction time is impaired from lack of sleep.

i find parking and call kimani to tell him i am parked and to call me when they get out, because i need to catch some z's in my car. the bbc is on and reporting about the Nepalese uprising, Darfur, and some Google/Yahoo stuff.

i fall asleep.

my phone rings. 2:08 am.

kimani is checking to see if i am okay.

yes, but i need to follow him home, because i am 75% asleep at this point and he reminds me of when i fell asleep on the san mateo bridge almost 3 years ago. i slammed against the median because i had fallen asleep on the incline. it put a major dent my my car's driver side door at the time. her name was yoni, because she was my sacred space.

i ramble.

the sun CAME OUT en force today. so though i was slow in waking this morning, i was greeted with a glorious day.

an absolutely glorious day.

and now it's quarter of 5 pm and we had a successful show of our wares for our fundraiser, so that makes me happy.

and tonight i'll continue the fiesta with Conscious Youth Media Crew and then continue Kimani's bday, at where?

Luka's! Carleton will be spinning and life will be good.

Someone order me some Belgian Fries so there hot and waiting for me when I arrive at the door!