Nic

I have been keeping a secret from you guys, a painful, gut-wrenching secret that I've been wanting to spill, needed to spill. But I couldn't.

Sadly, I now can reveal what has been breaking my heart for the past two years...

My best friend, Nici, whose pen name was W. Olivia Race, died today. She was diagnosed in April, 2005 with stage 4 breast cancer, and she died today, with her young daughter by her side, as well as Nic's cousin and his wife, my hand holding tight to Nic's, Yvette holding her other hand.

She was surrounded by those who loved her most, and she slipped away quick as that. Just silently slipped away.

Being that she was an intensely private person, she would have punched me upside the head if I dared whine and sob in public about her situation.

She wanted no pity, and fully expected those close to her to shut up with the cow-eyed moping already and just let her live. She wanted to laugh, so I made her laugh, she wanted to bang her head to electric guitar and talk about writing, and act like goofs, and eat ice cream, and watch horror movies, and...

Well, she did -- we did. But...

Okay, Nic, I shut up already. I kept my cow-eyed moping to myself, for the most part. Now, however, I intend to shout my sorrow to the world.

Some of you might have noticed that I haven't exactly been as prolific a blogger as I used to be. Well, now you know why.

Some days it was just too painful for me to try and be witty, pretend that my life wouldn't soon be so different -- bad-different.

I'll be taking a long break from blogging, but I shall return.

I've got a lot of mooing to do.

Until then, here's something I wrote on August 22, 2004, eight months before Nic was diagnosed.

Reading that now creeps me out in the worst way. It's almost...I don't know.

It's just damn weird is all.