Allyson...you've done your bit for king and country. Take a break, grieve and weep.

This, this, this. This.

Serenada memories

Thank you for the link.

If River Tam can be Serenity, then ita can certain sure be the Phoenix Board.

Beautifully said.

I keep switching between what seems to be real. It's either work and life are real and I'm pretending that ita's death isn't, or that all that's real is ita's death and the rest can just go and fuck itself.

I am also echoing Susan W.. When someone truly great dies, the only comfort I find is by thinking how to commemorate them in my daily life. How I should/can be a better person to my fellow humans, and to my environment. And there's so much inspiration I find in ita to motivate me to do it.

At Krav, K told one of the instructors who knew her. His response was "fucking glitter!" Remember her full on glee of using a sparkly Lush bathbomb before Krav and then getting glitter everywhere. She was always stoked to get her partners all glittery before sending them home.

This broke me.

Due to my terrible habit of not noticing posts in Press, I missed this terrible news all day yesterday and only realized something was amiss from COMM posts.

This is truly terrible news. I never met ita or even emailed her about anything personal, but my on-board interactions with her were always wonderful and her love for the board was so clear. When I joined the board I was intimidated (wrongly) by so many of the "main" posters,but despite the fact that she could kill me with her little finger I never felt anything but welcomed and embraced by ita. She grew and changed as the board grew and changed, and was a constant. I am not sure I see how the board will continue without her,though I know, of course, that it will. And the amazing thing is that I don't think she really knew how important she was not only to the technical functioning of the board but to the personal functioning of it. I will miss her and for those that knew her better I am so sorry.

I am pretty amazed, to be honest, how much this news has saddened me; I doubt I'd had any contact with ita this decade as I drifted away from here not long after Angel finished. But I have so many memories of her back on TT and during the exodus here; like someone said upthread or on Natter, "trying to get a laugh from ita" always drove me, and I think a lot of us, to be funny. She was just the cool, you know? Anyway, I've spent a lot of the day thinking about her, and you all, and hoping everyone's as OK as can be expected. I should maybe drop in here more often - I watched ita build this town, it's bad enough to know I hadn't spoken to her in so long, I don't want to feel the same about the other pioneers.

Teppy, there's also the Enforcers photo from before this board existed. It came from the F2F in October 2000, taken in our San Francisco garden: Betsy on one side, me in the middle, ita on the other side. There's a crossbow being pointed at the camera and ita is in leather and leg brace.

A few years later, when I was thinking of doing a book based Daymond John's pre-FUBU stories, he sent me down to experience a Hollywood club from behind the velvet rope. ita, in torn tights, her Docs, and a schoolgirl uniform plaid microskirt, came along as my muscle. The eight foot tall bouncer took one look at her, bowed, and let her scope out anything she wanted. Ironically, I ended up not doing the book with Daymond and used the nightclub experience in Kinkaid #7, Dead Flowers, in which Domitra features.

Christ. I miss her. She was one of my two "internet daughters", along with Vortex, who is coming down to see me today. There is going to be some serious weeping going on.

I want to delurk l to say how very sad I am for Buffistas' loss, the world's loss. Your posts are deeply moving and healing. ita you are missed, painfully and emphatically missed. I will support you forever in email.

Unrelatedly to this, a facebook friend posted

Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

and it seemed to go here.

A classic from the BRQG:

Betsy: One of the best feelings in the world is having a human being utterly limp on your shoulder.

ita: Especially when it was you that made them unconscious.

Re creating and printing the book, you've got Plus One Press at your disposal. It'd be an honor.

^^^what JZ said.