"I've just had an apostrophe...."
Apr. 12th, 2004 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kjpepperOh, my goddess.
At 9:55 this morning I was sitting barely ten feet away from Octavia E. Butler.
I kinda expected her to be bigger somehow. I mean, she's a large black woman, but I don't know, considering the impact her writing has had on me since my sister gave me Kindred to read when I was 13 or 14 (I stayed up all night with that book and finished it, despite the fact that it scared me shitless) I just expected her to be... bigger.
I liked listening to her speak. She has a very low voice, kind of that natural rich huskiness that accomplished drag queens take years to master. And she has a slight lisp, which is sort of comforting in a weird kind of way - even writers that you would gladly sacrifice first-born children are human. ;) One really dorky detail I happened to notice - she wears the skinny black high top Reebok cross trainers that I do. Except she wears the lowtops, and I wear the hightop ones. And she doesn't drive, so ha. *giggle*
How is it that you can confront one of your ultimate idols, discover they are real living people just like you are, and yet feel so humbled and unworthy somehow? This woman's writing is one of the reasons why I even considered writing in the first place... and there she sat, not three yards from where I sat, blowing her nose *chuckle* and yet the gulf felt unbridgeable. I mean, she's had such an impact on me and yet she doesn't know me from any other eager face in the class, except maybe to note that I'm one of two darker faces in the sea this morning. It's crazy, it's humbling, and yet utterly inspiring as well.
She mostly answered questions in class and was startlingly funny, wryly self-deprecating, and pointedly insightful about the process of writing... it's obvious that she loves what she does and thinks it's the most mind-bogglingly amazing thing that she does this for a living. One of the points was that everyone has a story to tell, and if you can't find your story written anywhere else, sometimes you just have to sit down and write yourself in.
On a related but not quite note... I've been re-obssessing myself with "How Soon Is Now" by the Smiths... that song is so resonating with me right now when I just vibrate with the fierce need to take off and start living the rest of my life somehow, somewhere, except I have to sit tight and finish what I started here at school because I also have this foolish desire to be a responsible human being under all of this crazy dreaming. Bah, college. And to think, if I had the self knowledge eight years ago to realize that this was so not what I wanted to do, and a lack of the stubborn pride that wouldn't admit my dad was right after flunking my first semester here when he said "all this says to me is that you don't want to be here," I could have been off doing something, following my bliss... but you can't change the past, can't reclaim the wasted time, and besides, there are a whole host of people I wouldn't have in my life right now if I hadn't gone to Smith, hadn't flunked the hell out the first time.
The cool thing is that you can always change the future. So in light of that, it was appropriate that "How Soon Is Now" was the last song I heard before settling down for lecture this morning.
At 9:55 this morning I was sitting barely ten feet away from Octavia E. Butler.
I kinda expected her to be bigger somehow. I mean, she's a large black woman, but I don't know, considering the impact her writing has had on me since my sister gave me Kindred to read when I was 13 or 14 (I stayed up all night with that book and finished it, despite the fact that it scared me shitless) I just expected her to be... bigger.
I liked listening to her speak. She has a very low voice, kind of that natural rich huskiness that accomplished drag queens take years to master. And she has a slight lisp, which is sort of comforting in a weird kind of way - even writers that you would gladly sacrifice first-born children are human. ;) One really dorky detail I happened to notice - she wears the skinny black high top Reebok cross trainers that I do. Except she wears the lowtops, and I wear the hightop ones. And she doesn't drive, so ha. *giggle*
How is it that you can confront one of your ultimate idols, discover they are real living people just like you are, and yet feel so humbled and unworthy somehow? This woman's writing is one of the reasons why I even considered writing in the first place... and there she sat, not three yards from where I sat, blowing her nose *chuckle* and yet the gulf felt unbridgeable. I mean, she's had such an impact on me and yet she doesn't know me from any other eager face in the class, except maybe to note that I'm one of two darker faces in the sea this morning. It's crazy, it's humbling, and yet utterly inspiring as well.
She mostly answered questions in class and was startlingly funny, wryly self-deprecating, and pointedly insightful about the process of writing... it's obvious that she loves what she does and thinks it's the most mind-bogglingly amazing thing that she does this for a living. One of the points was that everyone has a story to tell, and if you can't find your story written anywhere else, sometimes you just have to sit down and write yourself in.
On a related but not quite note... I've been re-obssessing myself with "How Soon Is Now" by the Smiths... that song is so resonating with me right now when I just vibrate with the fierce need to take off and start living the rest of my life somehow, somewhere, except I have to sit tight and finish what I started here at school because I also have this foolish desire to be a responsible human being under all of this crazy dreaming. Bah, college. And to think, if I had the self knowledge eight years ago to realize that this was so not what I wanted to do, and a lack of the stubborn pride that wouldn't admit my dad was right after flunking my first semester here when he said "all this says to me is that you don't want to be here," I could have been off doing something, following my bliss... but you can't change the past, can't reclaim the wasted time, and besides, there are a whole host of people I wouldn't have in my life right now if I hadn't gone to Smith, hadn't flunked the hell out the first time.
The cool thing is that you can always change the future. So in light of that, it was appropriate that "How Soon Is Now" was the last song I heard before settling down for lecture this morning.
I am the son and the heirI wonder if someday down the line Octavia Butler will know my name and remember that she was the second writer that ever gave me nightmares? I mean, come on, I'm sure you don't hear that every day from crazy drooling fangirls... Go me for making her laugh.
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and the heir
Of nothing in particular
You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does
When you say it's gonna happen "now",
Well, when exactly do you mean?
See I've already waited too long
And all my hope is gone...
