After a few months of working with Cathy Seipp, who as of the start of 2004 was writing a quasi-weekly piece for National Review Online, I got a call from her – in the course of which she announced that she normally doesn’t get along with female editors.

You can imagine the nervous pause on my end.

But, she continued, I had proven a pleasant surprise.

(Whew.)

What made her so exciting was that you could always expect uncompromising honesty from her. That’s why I was so glad to have Cathy writing for NRO, and to have her moral support in our common existence as conservative females in the opinion world (and especially the blogosphere, where life can get nasty, as Cathy knew all too awfully well).

Catherine Seipp died Wednesday in Los Angeles after a long, inspiring struggle with cancer.

Cathy always had something fresh, smart, and bold to say — always honest and very often disarming. Whether it was about Paris Hilton or the WB or parenting or war, she was always worth reading — typically entertaining (who says women aren’t funny?!) and informative.

“Was” feels so wrong in reference to someone so full of life — forever devoted to her brilliant daughter, always up for a challenge (and a fight).

We didn’t agree on every political or cultural issue but that could only be expected — she didn’t fit neatly into anyone’s mold or under any prefab label. And even when you disagreed with her, you wanted to read her and engage her (or watch someone else be so daring!).

Cathy Seipp was an original — one I’ll forever be grateful to have known and whose writing I will always be honored to have had the chance to publish.

Why do I say “inspiring”? Let me give you an example. Cathy thought she was being “lazy” when she lightened her load in her final months — something that was simply a necessity. Off and on over the last two years she’d have to bow in and out, sometimes a little late on a piece because of the toll of radiation. She’d frequently tell me how the schedule worked perfectly, so that she was normally up to sitting at a computer long enough to write a piece by the time her quasi-weekly piece was due to me. Under the circumstances, I was completely flexible, but Cathy was a writer, dammit, and she was going to deliver!

Inspiring, too, are the devoted friends and family around her, and especially her daughter, Maia, now a college freshman. A single mom, Cathy raised Maia to be the same kind of smart, independent, honest, gal Cathy herself was. As her mom fought for her life — surviving much longer than the estimated few hours after she was taken off life support on Monday — the amazingly mature Maia wrote to her mom’s fans on her mother’s blog: “Lungs collapsed so right now we just want to make sure she has dignity and is not in pain.”

Maia’s mom is free of the disease that wore her down and took her life, but she’s going nowhere in our cyberworld — as we reread, and remember, and pray for her family and friends.

The one chance I had to have lunch with her — at an adorable Mexican place in West Hollywood two falls ago — Cathy told me she didn’t really consider herself a blogger: It was but a natural hobby for a writer type. Ironically, that’s how very many praying for her and hers today know her. She saw the best and worst on the web. Even on her deathbed, Cathy fell victim to the worst, but in some of her final days she took comfort in the best. In an e-mail last month, she expressed her gratitude to friends and to complete strangers. “The good thing is readers have actually been hitting my blog paypal thing when they think of it now. And my friends have been fabulous, pitching in and driving, and it doesn’t make a whit of diff that they’re Dems or Reps. Maybe that’s the upside of all this.”

In one of her last e-mails to me, Cathy bemoaned her publication slowdown and assured me she’d try to be back. She said, “I’m hoping not entirely to disappear.” No chance of that, Miss Seipp.

FROM The SEIPP Archives In the coming days and weeks, I have no doubt there’ll be more of this. But to start things off, here are a few memorable Cathy lines, in no particular order:

“I really don’t mind being called a fascist or a commie pinko or an egomaniac…”

– “Coffee, Tea, or Fired for Blogging?,” November 24, 2004

A disappointed Kerry voter asked me in frustration the other day whether I’d rather people with red-state values be in charge of Hollywood content. Of course not! I don’t want George Bush writing sitcoms any more than I want Sean Penn writing foreign policy. But if Penn and company don’t want someone like Bush elected next time, they might try skipping those fact-finding trips to Baghdad and visit Middle America instead.

— “Red-State TV,” November 18, 2004

No matter what, someone’s always going to feel wronged. The question is whether it’s worth rearranging the basic building blocks of human society — not to mention clogging up family court with taxpayer-subsidized gay divorces — so a few people can feel better about themselves.

— “Moving On,” November 11, 2004

“I never take it for granted that I live in a country where free and fair elections can be taken for granted, and where the worst that generally happens on election day is a shouting match or a few snide remarks.”

— “The Blob At Its Best,” November 5, 2004

”When the New York Times calls you preachy and maudlin, you’ve got problems.”

— “The Wonderful World of WB,” October 28, 2004

I have no patience with people who accuse me of homophobia just because I’m against gay marriage. I used to write about fashion, many years ago. So, as I like to point out, I was surrounded by the boys in the band when you guys were still stealing your sisters’ Barbies.

— “At Home With Style,” August 11, 2004

The main reason a person might not like Maureen Dowd is that beneath all the cutesiness lurks thinking that is ignorant, hysterical, and unoriginal. There’s never anything in a Dowd column that you haven’t heard a hundred times before at any upscale cocktail party.

– “Welcome to Maureenworld,” September 1, 2004

“Men in charge of small children are like women and parallel parking: Attention must be paid or something’s going to get dented.”

– “Meet Today’s Dad,” June 16, 2004

“Some people seemed to think the blogosphere should be like academia, where outreach programs to find the perfect lesbian woman of color sociology professor are taken very seriously indeed.”

– “Bloggers Unregulated,” June 3, 2004

I went on Dennis Miller’s new CNBC show for the first time a few weeks ago and realized I’d better stop by the ophthalmologist first, because one of my fake tear ducts had become dislodged again, and a dripping eye is particularly unattractive on TV. I’m not exactly experienced in this area, but I suspect Rule Number One in the on-air media punditry handbook is probably: No leaking bodily fluids. “Isn’t Miller a big leftist?” Dr. D asked. “No, he’s a big rightist,” I said. Shock and disbelief! Many people just can’t accept that one of their fellow travelers has wandered off the correct path. But Dr. D understood the sorry reality when he saw me and my shoved-back-into-place tear duct on Dennis Miller the next night. “Your eye looked good,” he said, pleased with his work. Then, less pleased: “But it’s true; Miller’s a Nazi now.” “Oh, come on,” I said, even though I knew he was (sort of) teasing. Still, I began a tirade against elite liberals who call anyone with a different opinion a Nazi . . . until I realized I probably shouldn’t get into arguments with a guy whose job involves constantly poking my eyes with very long needles.

— “Dr. D & DM,” May 12, 2004

Nothing ticks the media elite off like seeing the masses insist on enjoying lowbrow entertainment, despite repeated instructions to do something else instead. . . . But the basic reason I love American Idol, which returned for its third season Jan. 19 on Fox, is that it has become such a bracing slap in the face to the prevailing notion that everyone is talented in his own way and deserves encouragement. That the free market, in other words, should conduct itself like a support group.

— “Simon Mean . . . and Mean,” February 2, 2004

The most pervasive unscientific assumptions deal with that well traveled media intersection where pop culture meets public policy. Journalists are typically nervous about the un-p.c. idea that masculine and feminine behavior have any basis in biology, for instance. No, no, they insist; it’s the culture. So are stallions rarely used as riding horses because the mares get their more docile nature from leafing through “How To Please a Man” articles in Cosmopolitan? (And maybe geldings subscribe to, I don’t know, Eunuch Living.)

– “Media Need a Chill Pill,” April 20, 2004

MORE: January 13, 2004: Living with Playboy

December 9, 2005: A Defense of Narnia

[How about those two for eclectic?!]

September 30, 2004: The Perfectly Signed Book

July 25, 2005, Gladys Kravitz Nation

May 17, 2005: Opinionated Women September 21, 2006: Maia Goes to College

December 1, 2006: Your Grandma Wore Science Buttons