Farewell to a friend...
It's been awhile since I've written anything here. Kept meaning to, but real life has been...interesting (old Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times.") and writing has been hard. Or at least writing about anything even remotely serious has been (I've played with one or two minor bits of fanfic for pure escape...dunno if they'll ever see the light of day or if anyone would care if they did--not overly popular or active fandoms).
But before I say anymore, I want to take a moment to extend my deepest sympathies to Rita (@ramzee68) for the loss of her wife, DAx (aka Nelani, Daxilla and even Patricia on rare occasion). DAx was a neat lady, smart, funny, talented, and always interesting. We'd both been in and around femslash fandoms for year, but oddly didn't really know each other until Otalia because we never seemed to be in the same place at the same time, but I knew the name and later had the honor and pleasure of knowing the lady herself. Ironically, it still wasn't much in fandom but rather playing World of Warcraft. When she found out Phox and I both played, she invited us to her home realm. Being as we were always realm hoppers (Phox likes playing itty bitty toons...and I like hanging out with Phox), we started new characters. One of my funniest memories of DAx is of her taking us around, riding on the back of a mount she had that took passengers (the word slips my mind...and not up to looking it up). We were very small and attracting a lot of unfriendly attention from every mob around (and if you have no idea what the heck I'm talking about, feel free to skim ahead), but DAx took us everywhere, throwing out ridiculously funny one-liners and snarky comments the whole time. She could fight, run, and joke all at once and it was hella funny riding along with her doing this entire one woman show. She must have been the fastest typist in ten counties.
She had the ability to just let go and have silly, stupid, wholly entertaining fun. The world could use more people like that, and it's the poorer for her loss. Certainly Phox and I and everyone that knew her is all the poorer. She was also smart and thoughtful, and kind and absolutely refused to live in the closet. I'm not sure she knew they existed. And I admired the hell out of her for that. It takes guts to put yourself so thoroughly out there in this world, but DAx did. She was a braver woman than I. And she did it with a mix of humor, charm, and human decency.
Honestly, it seems impossible that she's gone. Some people seem much too alive to ever die. DAx was like that. I said of my mother that one of most impressive things about her was that even after a terminal diagnosis, she was always living, never dying. DAx had that same quality. I can't give any higher compliment.
I think I'll end this post here and write whatever else I have to say on a different post. DAx was worthy of a tribute of her own.
Godspeed.