rebecca's pocket

Dammit.

I always admired her web stuff and this is just so wrong. I'm stunned.

...I've started working my own contact paths to try and learn to my satisfaction what's going on, because I'm still doing a WTF o'er here.

There are seven names of people who've REALLY inspired me over the years. Well, eight, but there's an asterisk next to that last one.

So few names, and Leslie Harpold is one of them.

I'm gonna bounce off and cuss like a sailor for a while.

i never met leslie but she gave me joy.

So sad to lose Leslie.

I'll always picture her laughing and dishing on Heather & Derek's couch, with at least one small dog adoring her attention.

Ah, HELL.

I met Leslie... how? I guess she emailed me about something I wrote at Suck. We finally met at a dark and dingy Hell's Kitchen bar and I quickly learned that no matter how good I thought my taste in music was, Leslie had better. (She was the first person to clue me into Radiohead, among other things.) I have a mix tape she sent me shortly after leaving New York; time to dig that one back out.

I haven't seen her in person for almost a decade but it is painful to hear this news nonetheless.

I only knew her through her websites, but I still think this really sucks. :( I've loved her work for almost a decade. RIP Leslie.

This is a tremendous blow. I do not know Leslie IRL, but have been a loyal devotee of the "harpold" domain for years. Every year, as December draws close, I get excited to see what she will do for the advent calendar. Last year I was able to contribute a memory and am grateful to have had that small chance to communicate with Leslie. Glad I saved our email exchange. I am envious of and deeply admire her sense of homour and writing style. It's the little touches; the unexpected jabs. I am deeply saddened by this news and hope that there is some way to keep her domain alive so that her work doesn't get lost in the internet ether. Thank you for showing me a different way of looking at life, Leslie.

Leslie let me stay in her Hell's Kitchen apartment just a few months after I was "introduced" to her online. She was such a generous soul. I think I still have the wonderfully elaborate map that she drew for me when I was unsuccessfully trying to figure out how get to Talas Art Supply. She hosted my non-website that I never got off the ground for over three years, and always emailed to let me know when my domain was about to expire. She was always looking out for others. And her writing! I can't even say how many times her words affected me. I didn't really know Leslie when all is said and done, but it was obvious that she was a person of the finest quality. Thanks for everything, Ms. Harpold- I won't forget you.

Well that just sucks, for the past few years one of the thing i've looked forward to around the holidays was her advent calendar. i'd noticed, as i'm sure thousands other had that it quit updating, perhaps a server problem, but nothing as devastating as this. i think i could cry just about now. she was as much apart of my christmasness as anyone, and i never knew her beyond this one page. fly high leslie, you're meant to be an angel.

I've just followed your links & followed wherever they led. I have been so touched by what I have read. I had never heard of Leslie Harpold but now I know her so closely, the strength & honesty of her writing drawing me in to places I often don't want to go; her writing of her lost love taking me to the point of tears & beyond. You will know more about these things than I but it would be nice to keep the archives of her work somewhere; somewhere others might come by chance & be changed like I have been. Authenticity is a rare quality.

i only just discovered leslie, and i was looking so forward to getting to know her (in a virtual sense) further.

i had been eagerly opening her advent calendar, and wondered why it hadn't been updated. i even wrote to my sister asking why.

it's very sad. i'm very sad that an obviously wonderful person has been lost. i'm very sorry for her family and friends.

I just read about this over at Todd Levin's site, tremble.com, and then, naturally, followed the path of URLs and read quite a few of the tributes. I didn't know Leslie in real life, but we'd corresponded a while back about nothing in particular and I found her to be quite fabulous. Last week, I was telling my boyfriend about "this great girl Leslie Harpold's online advent calendar" and wondering if she'd do it this year. And now this. I am so so sorry to hear about this. She seemed like one of the coolest chicks around.