This morning I came in to work a half day, and I was up very late the night before and for the first time since I can remember, the alarm clock had to wake me. Saturday morning, the grass lacy with frost, a random sheet of newspaper glazed with disco glitter, empty streets except for one jogger with a bobble hat and a guy walking a pair of those dogs that don’t look like dogs so much as Tina Turner wigs with feet.

As I walked along I thought about how much I love to live here, and how much I owe Anna.

I swear, and I’m not even lying, that 62 – 76% of everything I like about my life at this moment is due, in some way, to Anna.

When I first started out in X-Files, Anna is one of the first people who stopped me in my tracks. In A Dark Time was utterly lush, with magnificent vocabulary, a deadly knack for setting and mood, and sex scenes so intensely incendiary they stole my breath away. We exchanged a few emails, mine full of giddy praise, hers full of... what? Shy wit? Self-deprecating brilliance?

I think of all I’d owe her even if I’d never met her: the absolute kick of reading one of her X-Files, with her dangerously complicated Mulder, somehow re-drawn and more himself when Anna wrote him. Her passionate and underhanded Krycek. I fell in love with Jack O’Neill because of her – if you haven’t read The Other Half, jump to it. Every installment of her Buffy Season Noir was absolutely hypnotic, addictive, thrilling, in every sense of the word. Just the sheer amount of time I’ve spent reading and re-reading her stories alone would be enough to say she’s made measurable cheerful improvement to my life.

With her around, I fell in with such a crowd, babies. Old school X-philes like torch, Te, Hal, Spike, Kat Allison, Jane Mortimer, Laura Shapiro... August company indeed. And when I first came to the West Coast, I stayed with her. I met one of my most cherished friends live and in person (you may know her as McSwain! Or lucitania) because Anna offered to let me stay on her couch (after, you know, helping me meet McSwain! and years later McSwain! letting me stay with her while I looked for work in northern Washington), and I moved to my beautiful city because Anna let me stay on her couch while I got a job in town when Northern Washington didn’t work out. She later, in fact, gave me that most beloved couch (and much of the rest of my furnished apartment)—and I cried bitter tears when I had to move and the couch was too magnificent (and long) for me to fit into my tiny teabox apartment.

Without Anna and her X-Files catching the eye of other superb people with excellent taste, it is likely I’d never have met anyone on LJ at all. Without Anna, it is absolutely certain I would never have met Mr. Pants, because without Anna I could never have managed to get on my feet, and would never have been able to stay on here.

So, I say to you, to know Anna is to love her. Even to only know of her through any of the stories she’s given us, is to love her. And this love has been materially demonstrated by the sending of an astonishing influx of cash to help her ride out this rough patch.

You lovelies, each and every one of you. With your incredible kindness, we raised a pretty sweet chunk of change. By which I mean we broke $2,000 bucks. In 24 hours. On a weekend. You guys. You guys! 2 grand!! (Total: $2285.00.)

Oh, you are all made of love. Also magic beans. And solid gold dancers. With hearts of gold.

Such kindness can never be repaid, but perhaps it can be duplicated. I know this is not the last act of charming generosity I see while you guys draw breath.

Hugs all around. And gold stars on all your foreheads. My sweet people!

Happy Birthday, my dearest darling Anna. As you see, you are loved by many, and that is always very nice to know.

Love,

kormantic

[By the way, just so you know, I gave Anna a $500.00 chunk in person and will be getting the rest to her after the PayPal donations clear in my bank account, which may take until Jan 28 or so. I don’t know about youse guys out there, but I don’t have that kind of cash just lying around, so I couldn't actually front her the whole amount at once. (g) Your generosity was literally overwhelming, and I will smile every time I think of it for the rest of my life.]