A Farewell to Shelley(ness)

My friend Shelley Combs died, suddenly, a week ago. I found out about it the other day when her ex-husband posted about it on Facebook, and it was fair to say I was shocked. She and I had messaged each other just a few days before her passing, to catch up and talk about our kids and just have very mundane friend talk. I didn’t know it would be the last time I would ever talk to her, but then, we so rarely do know when will ever be the last time. What strikes me most about it now was the very ordinariness of it. Just two friends, chatting. And then that was all. I met Shelley back in the day, when I had just started writing the Whatever, and she and I were part of that first wave of “online journals,” the name we had for blogs before we had the word “blog.” This what I had to say about her and her site, Shelleyness, most of thirty years ago now: Shelley is that whip-smart girl in your homeroom class who everyone was a little scared of, not because she could beat you up (though don’t…