Odds and ends of a weekend

Busily toiling away on new stories. What is hopefully the title story for my new collection is coming along. I'm hoping to have a draft done tonight or tomorrow. I just finished a draft of a story someone asked me for awhile back, which is now due in 2 weeks, so that just leaves 2 more stories to write this month. Silver Moon got shot down at Agent #2 so we're on to Agent # 3 who wants a synopsis, which I don't have yet so that's the other thing what needs to be written. Still hoping to get that drafted between tonight and tomorrow. And I'll sleep when I'm dead, as per the usual.

Other than that, it's been a lively week with work stuff and some socializing. We had friends over on Friday to watch Michelle Yeoh in Wing Chun (best food-related fight scene ever!) and the "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" (also known as the lesbian vampire episode) of Xena. Now I want to watch all 7 seasons back to back but so do not have the time. Yesterday was a foray in the rain to the Stonearch Arts Festival where earrings and a necklace were bought. Then Jana and I were off to see Cirque du Soleil's production Ovo down by Ikea. This was a lot of fun, though the quasi-romantic elements of the plot got tiresome. The costumes, music and acrobatics more than made up for it though.

I've got some more sombre news which I'll post separately. Otherwise, onward and upward!

Some thoughts on the passing of Cheryl B.

Cheryl Burke, aka Cheryl B., poet, performer, author, editor and organizer, passed away from complications from chemo for Hodgkin's Lymphoma this weekend. There's a nicely done memorial out on the Lambda Lit blog (though it does have the wrong date on it).

Awhile back, Cheryl accepted an essay of mine entitled "Strange, But Not a Stranger" for an anthology of bi women's writing that she was pulling together for Suspect Thoughts Press. We chatted online in various venues over the years in which the antho was delayed and delayed and then Suspect Thoughts folded and no one picked the book up. I enjoyed the interactions I had with her and was sorry that I never got to see her perform or meet her in person. And I'm sorry that the book never saw the light of day. I think she would have done some interesting things with it. On July 23, there'll be a benefit at Dixon Place to help out Cheryl's partner, comedian Kelli Dunham, and pay some of Cheryl's medical bills. I can't be there but once I know what the donation address is, I'll be posting that essay out here and asking for donations. I wish the weekend held better news. I don't think Cheryl was someone we could afford to lose.