It's still very hard to get my head around that concept. I've had a couple of friends die before - my high school friend Sheila died in 1997 and my college friend Matt died in 2005 (though none of my other friends found out about it until several months later). This is the first death of a local friend, however, and the first that was a complete and total out-of-left field shocker - Sheila had chronic health problems all her life and Matt had been warned by his doctor to change a lot of bad habits (smoking and drinking) or his time would be cut short.

Neil fell and hit his head a few days before Fourth of July and was in the hospital briefly before being sent home with a bottle of Vicodin. Sunday the 6th, he got up to take a pill and collapsed in the bathroom. This time the doctors found he had bleeding on the brain. After surgery, the outlook seemed cautious but optimistic, but apparently there was too much damage because on Thursday the 10th, I got an email saying that he would be taken off life support on Saturday the 12th.

The logical part of my brain tells me that unfortunately things like this happen: car accidents, falls, accidental poisoning, even things like sudden aneurysms. I can't be logical, though; this isn't a news story or something on a TV show, this is a guy who I roomed with for a year and who I played poker with just a couple of months ago. I have enough dreams with serious or tragic themes that it's still hard to think I won't wake up shortly. My friends tell enough bad jokes and tall tales that I want to think this is someone's poor taste idea of a practical joke.

Part of what complicates everything is that despite knowing each other for 15 years, we never were that close. With the exception of my freshman year in college, all of my roommates were friends or friends of friends and my living situations were like one very long night out with the guys.

Neil and I never clicked that way; my friend Allan, who'd been Neil's friend since high school, had recommended we room together when Neil was moving to Los Angeles and I figured we'd get along as well as I had with Allan's friend Andrew, who I'd lived with for two years prior.

But it didn't work it. Looking back, it was probably a combination of personalities not meshing, my own personality quirks and expectations of living together and Neil's own admitted reticence to merge his home life and social life. We never were really at odds; he never seemed like someone to overtly lose his temper and there were never any conflicts over the usual roommate stuff like cleanliness or late bills.

Over the last few years, however, at least we could joke around in group situations and he'd invite me to his birthday parties or poker games. I fully admit that I'm not the most outgoing person so it was definitely to his credit that he made those overtures.

So my mourning is compounded by guilt and regret, not just over someone with whom I could have been a better friend but also admittedly over using his passing as an excuse to play the martyr when I hadn't actually seen or talked to him in a couple of months. I do think people can mourn acquaintances or even total strangers if the death strikes something in them and part of me is trying to feel empathetic with other friends and acquaintances who were closer to him, but I can't escape those guilt feelings.

This coming Friday, a few of us will gather for an informal wake and there has been talk about a bigger Los Angeles memorial for all his friends and colleagues out here, although as far as I know nothing much has been done about it.