My friend Angela Boone died suddenly last week. Her passing has been a great shock to her family and friends, and I am still coming to terms with it. I hate that she’s gone. I try to be all spiritual and philosophical; lighting candles in her honor, spending time in peaceful reflection, and all that hippie stuff that’s engrained in my heart and head from my childhood and the books that I read now. I tell myself that Angela is still with us, that no one really dies, that energy simply changes form, she is still alive in our memories, ad infinitum. But it only helps a little. I hope that in time I will find peace and accept her passing. I probably will. But for now, it sucks. I really miss her.
Angela was funny, generous, kind, and wise. She was a voracious reader; a true lover of the written word. She was a big fan of Stephen King, and even named her (female) cat after him. (Her other cat—also female—was named Paul Anka. I never found out why, but I’m sure there’s a story there.) I once had a discussion with her about MySpace—back when people still used MySpace—and I admitted to her that I had a fake profile I’d set up to spy on old boyfriends. Angela laughed and told me that on her MySpace she’d claimed to have won the Nobel Prize. That had to be most awesome and ambitious MySpace lie I’d ever heard. After all, if you’re going to lie on your MySpace profile, you might as well go all the way.
Angela is survived by her partner Erik and her sixteen-year-old daughter—a talented budding chef—and a whole slew of family and friends who were absolutely crazy about her. In fact, I initially met Angela through her best friend Leah, also a dear friend of mine. My favorite memory of the two of them is the time we all hung out at the Blue Nile for a spoken-word event. Although Leah and Ange unfortunately didn’t get their names on the waiting list in time to read their work, I had a great time hanging out at the bar with both of them and—when the club closed for the night and they kicked us out—drinking vodka in the parking lot and listening to the assembled bohemian types strum their guitars and butcher Dylan songs. It ranks as probably my all-time favorite Minneapolis memory.
So here’s to Angela Boone: artist, poet, mother, daughter, friend, Nobel Prize winner, and all around bad-ass chick. Rest in Peace, sistah.