that is NOT cool

I can't find any official news articles on this, but there's a fair amount of blogsphere postings about Octavia Butler's sudden death yesterday.

I met her two years ago when she came to speak to Bill Oram's class on science fiction/speculative fiction... Almost a decade before that I stayed up all night scaring the crap out of myself by reading Kindred, and afterwards deciding I wanted to be her when I grew up. I still do on some level. She was a fantastic writer, and still remains one of the strongest black voices in an otherwise fairly lily white genre.

She will be sorely missed.

Opportunity knocks...

So. The question of belly dance classes reopens. It's something I've been meaning to do practically since high school, and I must admit to reading about nepenthe01's shows and classes with some serious envy. It never seemed to be something I ever had time or money for... but I just found out that one of the Crescent Dancers is teaching classes here in Amherst on Tuesdays, and at $13 a pop ($11 if you preregister) the money thing is no longer excuse. And it even lets out early enough to go to Haven if I still wanna.

The next session starts April 4th and runs for 8 weeks, and I'm thinking of biting the bullet and finally going, seeing if I like it. I miss dancing, and I need to do something with myself physically anyway, 'specially as I'm somewhat appalled at the general state of my muscle tone (I'm so out of shape right now it's sick - I swear, I was in much better shape before I misplaced thirty-five pounds) and since I can't quite afford going to the gym and Bellenoire's out of commision still... hmm, note to self, need to stop by Laughing Dog and find out how much it's going to be to replace my back tire and tune Belle up...

In other news, remind me that DPDough bread sticks are never a good idea. Good fucking god, the garlic. It'll kill ya. I can still taste it. Bleck.