The Ol' Maestro
New Member
(disclaimer: This is basically a eulogy. If you didn't know Io, or you don't want to read someone's rant concerning death, or any combination of the above, just go to the next message. The Webmaster has my permission to delete this post if it is thought inappropriate)
I was on DimChat not long ago, and reconnected with an old online friend. We chatted, caught up on many things, and I asked about our mutual friend who called herself Io, who had disappeared from the online scene not too long after a recital I had played in 1998, which she and the friend with whom I was chatting had attended.
There was a long pause, and the friend posted a sentence that gave me pause (this isn't the exact wording, but you get the idea):
"Gene, she died last spring. I'm sorry I had to tell you."
Io a/k/a Nimue [on IRC] a/k/a Janet was one of the first people I'd met on Dimensions Feeder Chat when it was a primitive text-only program. Io was also one of the first I had a farily big disagreement with, followed (not too long after) by a reconciliation. Her output of wg fiction was small (look in the Weight Room for her two stories) but brilliantly crafted, articulately written, and ripping good reads. More than once I sent her a draft for her critique, and she was thorough, constructive, painful, and accurate in her thoughts. All in all, she was one of my first online friends in feederism.
She was also my first Pagan friend. Despite my role as someone working for the Church as a musician, I have found that I have a knack for attracting Pagan friends, which is fine. On my loss of a job, Io declared that prayers to the power of the oak (forgive me if I'm getting this wrong, Pagan readers) were in order. They seemed to work well, as another job appeared almost immediately. We held the unspoken agreement that I wouldn't proselytize her, and she wouldn't try converting me to Paganism.
I wept with her on the initial discovery of her cancer, rejoiced in her remission, spent far too many hours discussing music, politics, religion and everything else under the sun online with her, and thrilled during our two visits in realtime, both in Lancaster County PA.
As I said, after the second realtime encounter--a dedication recital which, unbeknownst to the audience at large, held four or more members of the feederism community--Io disappeared. One mutual friend had spoken with her in the early '00s, and I had sent her an e-mail around that time, but no reply. Then came the recent announcement of her passing.
Io was a solid writer of wg fiction, a woman with a powerful command of the English language, the owner of a great sense of humor, and even from within the confines of a modem line, one of my good friends. I miss her.
The lesson I learned from this is to keep a better handle on communicating with my friends and relations. I let her slip away for too long, and now she is no longer with us.
Rest well, Janet.
I was on DimChat not long ago, and reconnected with an old online friend. We chatted, caught up on many things, and I asked about our mutual friend who called herself Io, who had disappeared from the online scene not too long after a recital I had played in 1998, which she and the friend with whom I was chatting had attended.
There was a long pause, and the friend posted a sentence that gave me pause (this isn't the exact wording, but you get the idea):
"Gene, she died last spring. I'm sorry I had to tell you."
Io a/k/a Nimue [on IRC] a/k/a Janet was one of the first people I'd met on Dimensions Feeder Chat when it was a primitive text-only program. Io was also one of the first I had a farily big disagreement with, followed (not too long after) by a reconciliation. Her output of wg fiction was small (look in the Weight Room for her two stories) but brilliantly crafted, articulately written, and ripping good reads. More than once I sent her a draft for her critique, and she was thorough, constructive, painful, and accurate in her thoughts. All in all, she was one of my first online friends in feederism.
She was also my first Pagan friend. Despite my role as someone working for the Church as a musician, I have found that I have a knack for attracting Pagan friends, which is fine. On my loss of a job, Io declared that prayers to the power of the oak (forgive me if I'm getting this wrong, Pagan readers) were in order. They seemed to work well, as another job appeared almost immediately. We held the unspoken agreement that I wouldn't proselytize her, and she wouldn't try converting me to Paganism.
I wept with her on the initial discovery of her cancer, rejoiced in her remission, spent far too many hours discussing music, politics, religion and everything else under the sun online with her, and thrilled during our two visits in realtime, both in Lancaster County PA.
As I said, after the second realtime encounter--a dedication recital which, unbeknownst to the audience at large, held four or more members of the feederism community--Io disappeared. One mutual friend had spoken with her in the early '00s, and I had sent her an e-mail around that time, but no reply. Then came the recent announcement of her passing.
Io was a solid writer of wg fiction, a woman with a powerful command of the English language, the owner of a great sense of humor, and even from within the confines of a modem line, one of my good friends. I miss her.
The lesson I learned from this is to keep a better handle on communicating with my friends and relations. I let her slip away for too long, and now she is no longer with us.
Rest well, Janet.
