Kiba, insent.

If you end up not having the spoons, maybe we'll just have to do it again when Glam gets here.

I'm here. I've been here all along--except for about four hours' sleep. I was on the board when Kristen posted, and. It wasn't real. It was one of those things where you knew something huge and awful, but nobody else knew, and as long as they didn't, maybe it wasn't true.

I did tell Plei, Jilli, Juliana, and Lee, and emailed Deb. It wasn't, though, until I saw David's post in FB Buffistas that people needed to check in on the board that I felt like I could put the news down and try to sleep. It was this morning, when I had email and FB notifications, and checked LJ, that the tears came. People knew, lots of people, people I know who also knew ita, and that meant it really was real. That's when the tears came.

I've surfed a tide of tears today. ita was at the heart of everything I've ever done online, every place I visited in my first timid forays, and places I've explored since. She's woven into the fabric of my everyday--there's no way her thread is ever going to be extricated from my life, from me. I helped encourage her move, helped her make the decision between NYC and LA, and followed the progress of her drive west. On WX and after, I fed her pictures of wet men, men in skirts, in glasses, of hands, of feet, of silver foxes and amazing women. We shared some obscure interests, some old fandoms, and new ones. We had disagreements and periods of coolness. But I hope, I think we were always good, underneath a ruffled surface, I hope she knew I was always in her corner, on her side, no matter what.

The outpouring here, in Natter, on FB is amazing and wonderful and cathartic in the power of how deeply people felt about her. There's not enough gratitude for Kristen, Allyson, Paula, Norah, and the other LAistas, for what they've already done on behalf of us who couldn't be there, and for what they're planning for her family, and further plans. Thank you, thank you all, so much.

And thanks to everybody here who knew her, in whatever measure, and have gathered to sing her ballad and remember her indomitable fierce, tender, beautiful spirit. One great regret of my life is that I never got to meet her, face to face.

In Aragorn's words, "Be at peace."

I don't believe in bucket lists, but in my circumstances, one can't help making some kind of list. Meeting ita is on that list.

I discovered B.org a few months before my first cancer diagnosis, and this board was the bright light I held onto though that year of treatment and ever since. The Buffistas saved my life. ita saved my life. Allyson, through whom I found B.org, saved my life.

Well said, Bev.

She said we were angels

You are angels. Or just some of the best, in your hearts and spleens, humans that I know.

I'm sadly glad I went to bed early last night and didn't even skim the email on my phone when I checked the time in the middle of the night. Because I couldn't bear learning at 6 a.m. but at least I'd had decent sleep. My heart is breaking for her family, for us, for everyone she ever knew.

She would always send me links to new styles of silver ankhs she had ran across, and then remind me that I should just get one as a tattoo.

Yup. She never failed to toss me a link to an actress who had shaved her head for a role. Just knowing that she had your back and you were present in her consciousness, that she knew you well enough to want to share something back with you.

I loved that I found a barbershop for her in LA that she liked. Doing her a favor felt like a gift.

I was just thinking about the barbershop, and thinking that they need to know; it seems that surely everyone needs to know, that there cannot be anyone who's ever encountered her for whom she was momentary or insignificant.

Man, I'd totally forgotten about the Batman Fact Generator.

I am wearing my Batman undies today.

-t, I would love a copy.

I'm very thankful Lee included me in her dinner plans with ita one night a few years ago. It was a lovely evening and one I think of often.

I never really met her -- she came to the Prom party at the LA F2F and was promptly three deep in Buffistas that I hardly knew either, so zipped my lip and hung back.

That was it, my only chance.

Shared with you, brenda.

I think the link in post -t "ita's thread" Jan 13, 2015 1:34:27 pm PST should work for anyone.

Do these links still work?

Two pictures, each from one of the times I was lucky enough to meet ita. Both from my USA trip:

[link]

[link]

One of the things I was most thankful for, during my LA visit, was that I got to attend a krav lesson in which ita assisted teaching (Lee, do you remember? we scheduled and re-scheduled and things got shifted and cancelled and schedules changed again, until at the very last evening of the very last day I was in LA it finally all clicked, and we were able to go).

I was lucky enough to get to study a bit from her, to share with her that thing she loved so much and was so good at. She was a really good teacher. She made *me* learn stuff about kicking and punching, and I've never before or since managed to accomplish that again. It was probably the one-of-a-kind air that she brought to it that enabled it for me.

[Edit: -t, the link opens fine for me - thank you so much for sharing that.]