The Aerie
Back a zillion years ago when I started this blog (back before the gawdawful word 'blog' was coined in fact), I cited a number of people as inspiration for what was, then, a somewhat novel idea: an online diary. James Lileks (who still posts every day), Sei Shonagon (who hasn't posted an update in years), and Dack Ragus (with who I worked at the time,) and Ana Voog (who apparently still lives with multiple webcams running in her apartment 24/7.) All of them were pioneers in this blog thing.
But the other person I credited was Asia Carrera who at the time was not only a hardcore pr0nstar, but was also and continues to be a thorough computer geek. I didn't stumble across her site looking for H0t action - I stumbled across her site when researching what kind of computer equipment to buy. I mean, it's not like the pictures drove me away or anything.
Over the years I followed Asia as she went from one bad relationship to another, as she built one "buttkicking supercomputer" after another, as well as doing all her website work and online sales herself. She was proud of her investments and the fact that unlike other pr0nstars she was saving money in mutual funds and wasn't using drugs.
She went out with first one guy and then another, finally spending a lot of her emotional energy on a British lad. When push came to shove, however, the pair broke up, and a heartbroken Asia poured out her feelings on her blog.
Then she met and fell in love with Don Lemmon. They married and Asia retired from porn. They moved to Hawaii and found out that landlords don't like renting to ex-pornstars, and that life in Hawaii is nice, but expensive. Then they moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, and Asia announced they were pregnant.
Their daughter Catty was born and Asia was as happy as she had ever been online. As Catty got older, Asia and Don mulled over whether to have more children, and I e-mailed her urging her to dive in again, because kids are so great. They decided to have another child, and eight months ago Asia announced on her journal that they were pregnant with their second child. Sonograms revealed a boy, who they named Devin.
Yesterday Don Lemmon rolled his car on his way home from a business meeting in Las Vegas and died at the scene, leaving Asia eight months pregnant and with a child on her hip.
As she has done for ten years now, Asia posted the news to her blog. Another friend who reads Asia's blog sent me an e-mail to let me know.
I've never met her, and probably never will, but I feel terrible for her nonetheless. By all reports she had a hard, abusive childhood that led her to pr0nography as a career. Regardless of the industry and its foibles, she conducted herself with intelligence and character, and where many participants in that trade flame out and succumb to drugs or crime, she persevered and came out the other side in better shape than when she entered. And then just when she has found happiness and is ready to settle down, this tragedy.
It's just wrong.
Posted by Albatross at June 12, 2006 2:42 PM | TrackBack