Life

Jon Carroll in the Chronicle today said "The crowd rose as one and raised their cameras in the air."  And he goes on to talk about how we spend so much time documenting and sharing and posting on Facebook and tweeting we forget to experience the moment.  Word.

He also talks about a friend who died recently, too young.  I'm at the age where I think a bit more about this not going on forever, and what I want to do with what's left.  Be clear, be calm.  Stay on center, know the truth.

But when Mr Carroll got to not being able to attend your own wake, I stopped.  And I thought "If I knew my time was almost up, I'd throw myself a going away party!"  Remember that great scene in Waking Ned Devine?   Why do we wait until our friends are dead to say how much they mean to us?

I have a Jill Jar on my counter, given to me by the Gossip Girls and family.  On each beautiful and beautifully curled strip of paper is something kind, something meaningful, some way I have touched their lives.  I take strips out and read them when i'm having a wormy day.  Sometimes it's a one-strip day.  On a really bad day I emptied the jar.  I always feel better.

But back to Jon Carroll:  His columns are funny in unexpected ways.  Read about driving in Indonesia - a classic.  And thought provoking in a gentle nudge-in-the-ribs sort of way.  We all need that occasionally.

His Christmas Quiz is legendary.  If you have snobby intellectual acquaintances who play "I know more than you do" bring one of these out the next time you're having dinner with them.  Stump the Chump.  Gotta love it.

I miss Herb Caen.  I learned to read on my father's lap at breakfast, sopping up his egg yolk with his toast, following along as he read the funny bits of Herb Caen aloud.  If he were alive today, and if I still fit on his lap, we would be reading Jon Carroll.  He's a good reason to subscribe to the SF Chronicle.