The power went out on Sunday, so we spent much of the day huddled under fuzzy blankets in the living room with a fire in the fireplace. The streets were clean by that evening, so we ventured up to my brother's house, where they had heat and light, for dinner and a DVD. It was quite pleasant.

Then we went back to our cold, dark house and sat in the living room for a bit, sipping wine by candlelight. Then I decided to use what charge was left in my laptop to hook into the phone line and post something on the eddieizzard community and check around the net for a bit. No big deal.

Then I read my friends page and found out Wes Wehmiller was dead.

I gasped out loud. My mother asked what was wrong; I shakily explained. I closed my laptop and went back to the living room. Suddenly, moodling around the internet was the last thing on my mind.

I still can't wrap my mind around it. People younger than I am have no business being dead. Especially somebody as alive as Wes was. He had enormous shoes to fill when he played John Taylor's bass parts on stage, and he fucking well filled them. Granted, his stick-in-the-mud stage presence will never compare to John's antics, but musically he handled everything perfectly.

I remember him as being very shy and almost a little intimidated by the intensity of Duraniedom. I asked him to do a page in my Hippie Chick book. He scribbled a signature and I told him he had to do more than that to the page. So he drew a little island with a coconut tree on it and apologized for it being such a crappy drawing. I reassured him it was fine; it was all about expression.

I miss those days, and now I miss them even more terribly knowing that a part of them is irretrievably gone.

Rest in peace, Wes. I'll never forget ya. You and those dorky striped socks.