A photograph with a smiling face
porsupah has died.
Cancer, as she learned in November 2022. She'd seemed to be doing tolerably well, as reported. But the last few months had unexplained (to us, and apparently to her) bloating that seemed to go against the progress she'd been making. I forget whether it was late February or early March that she went to hospital, but the last week or so was that silence you don't notice until it hits you.
And then came authoritative enough word, and an outpouring of memories, and also a suggestion about where to donate for those who wish to. And a lot of nice things said about her. And people re-sharing, or discovering, her best-known photograph from all her time rabbiteering.
I was fortunate to reconnect with her three times, in different decades. In the 90s on FurToonia Muck, where she was a wizard and found me engaging enough to keep as a friend. She left after a couple years and then somehow --- I forget how --- recontacted me when I was in Singapore and she was making a tour of the world.
Then a few years later, when everyone started getting Livejournals and I could share the wonders, large and small, of what I encountered. Her Livejournal's name --- ``Entry Point For Half-Lane Cheerleader Zone'' --- came from something I observed, a sign on a side street being prepared for a parade, and part of me is delighted that she never found a better set of words to string together as her title.
And then, after people drifted or were driven from Livejournal, we reconnected again on Mastodon, the social media network you're tired of people telling you you should try and something something instances. With her ability at connecting people, and taking responsibility, she became one of the centerpiece people of my social network there, not to mention a moderator on lgbt.io, one of the many queer-inviting groups there.
There's much to remember about her. What I keep thinking about is from her visit to Singapore and just one of those evenings we spent hanging out, huddling around her laptop in the New Seventh Storey Hotel in the Bugis neighborhood (where, she was amused to learn, back in the day used to be where the men who'd cross-dress at night would hang out, and leave Royal Navy men wondering where all these beautiful women were during the day), watching a totally legitimate DVD of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back for whatever reason. It was just a happy place to be, right then and there, with a person it was nice being with.
Trivia: Charles-Marie de La Condamine, the first Western scientist to investigate rubber latex, brought back to Paris in 1735 samples of the raw latex sap of the caoutchouc tree. Unfortunately it fermented during shipment, and arrived in Europe as a useless, smelly mass. Source: Napoleon's Buttons: 17 Molecules That Changed History, Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson.
Currently Reading: We Could Not Fail: The First African Americans in the Space Program, Richard Paul and Steven Moss.