What a weird person to have known and liked two decades ago. I didn't think I'd be thinking of her at 40, but here we are.

So yeah, the past few days have been incredibly weird, as I married the smart girl I thought would positively change the world with the intensely conservative anti feminist essayist. I'm glad to have heard Moira's takes from this episode, as they helped me figure this out, but it still hurts a bit.

Like I was the theatre and GSA kid who pivoted toward goth and punk culture, but we were still cool. Her mom used to drive me home. She lived a block away. We talked about Elvish and fairy tales. We listened to Rent. It's always been incredibly odd that she turned out this way in my opinion.

I'm very sorry for your loss. She personally impacted multiple people I work with who knew her and Jennell, and the loss is a real blow for all of them, too. I wish I had known her, seeing all the lovely words people are saying about her. 💚

I'm sorry, and a correction, Helen's father and sister have passed, but I don't know about her mother. Got my wires crossed there, and I apologize.

Like, her mom (who has since passed away, sadly) was a liberal/leftist second-wave feminist hippie type, and it's incredibly weird to see what Helen became at and after Yale. I still have a copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales she lent (oops) to me in like 2001. It's truly bizarre to read her current stuff.

I'm coming to this late because I don't check bsky as often as I should, but I went to school (Enloe High, class of 2003) with Helen, and we rode the same bus.

The more I've watched her over the years the weirder it's gotten, as the Helen I knew got me into protest music and the Elvish language.

When they're babies we had to discourage them from hanging off our necks and arms with their prehensile tails because we don't want them to try that when they weigh 70+ lbs.

Honestly I'm 40 and didn't think I'd recall this stuff. Do you want facts about binturongs or kinkajous or large cats? I'm your girl.

Also as soon as she mentioned the tiger Romeo, my autistic ass started spitting facts about him that I learned when I was 12. He was half a ton! His paws were the size of dinner plates! He had a whole acre to himself! (Why do I recall this? Neurodivergence.)

I saw "have pride June" out of order to the other skeets and was like "yeah, June is Pride month, obviously. We're all gonna have a pride June"

I might be very tired.

Anyway I'll be on I street later if anyone is bored I guess.