Yesterday, I lost my dear friend Erlene Zierke to a tragic accident. Without going into details, she will not be im'ing or emailing me anymore. And she won't be twittering more hilarious thoughts (her last tweet reads: "cats do not like elephant hats their heads"). Like a lot of you, we've only met in real life a couple of times, but we talked often and I cherished her friendship.
I met Erlene in May 2005. She crashed our E3 BBQ with Evan. She struck me as gorgeous and smiled a lot. The first email she wrote me opened with, "yo. we met at your BBQ... though i won't hold it against you if you forgot me." I responded with, "I remember you. Pretty eyes." I meant it. Erlene had devious twinkly eyes and a personality to match.
As our relationship grew, we brainstormed and helped each other with our respective work, shared time-wasting links (read: observed internet memes together), debated which tech conferences were the best to attend, and discussed other mundane life topics. When I asked Erlene if she would take a meeting with my cousin Nellie, she happily obliged. And although she did not have a job for Nellie, she had nice, sassy things to say about her. Erlene was a two-way street.
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