Must to bed and with a somewhat heavy heart. I was doing the Facebook birthdays thing and saw my pal Donna Dooley's birthday is today, so I wished her a happy birthday, then on a whim, just to see what she was up to since we hadn't communicated in a while, I went to her page - to find out she died almost two years ago. I can't find out how, but I've asked someone who's been posting regularly on her page - couldn't find out cause of death on Google. She was sixty-one. I met her in 1978 when we were about to do Stages at the Matrix Theater - at that time we had a new choreographer, Tanya Everett, so I was in her dance class and that's where I met Donna. I was instantly taken with her, I'm afraid. She hung out at the Stages rehearsals and then performances quite regularly, and we had a brief but intense romance back then.
I lost track of her for awhile, but she found me in the mid-1980s, and we had a nice reunion for an evening, then lost track of her again until the 2000s - can't remember how I found her - maybe Facebook early on, because I'd been living here for at least two or three years, maybe even four. We began having long telephone calls every night - it was nice to catch up - things hadn't been that easy for her, I gathered. We talked about a visit, but life was busy back then and it never happened. Occasionally she'd send me a photo, or "like" posts on Facebook, but that hadn't happened in the last two years and now I know why. RIP belatedly, dear Donna.