Last Post of 2004:

Today is the last day of 2004 and I've been thinking all week about what to say, as a roundup, as an analysis, as a farewell to a Matterhorn ride of a year. Truth, I'm rather speechless. This was one of the more dramatic years of my life, where the highs rang out like yell in a canyon and lows sank me to my knees. Or rather my bed.

I worked on a book most of the year, that's all but done and is actually up on Amazon. My book. It hasn't felt real until now. I celebrated three years in a relationship with Suzan, love deepened by trips to two countries and a cat named Faygo. I worked on Litquake again, the biggest baddest festival of its kind to date. It's still being talked about several months later. I started taking my career more seriously, leaving The Grotto, building an office, petitioning for membership in the National Speakers Association and entering into talks about my second book. I volunteered at the San Francisco Food Bank, Jewish Family and Children Services and The Hub. I saw friends get engaged, get married, come to San Francisco and move away. Some are starting to have kids. Some are just figuring out what they want.

Seeing John Kerry lose in November broke my heart. It hasn't quite mended.

Most of all, I spend a lot of this year thinking about health and well being. I turned 31 which means worries and concerns you don't have when you're 20. I focused on eating well, exercising, meditating each morning. The first week of the year, I'm getting a physical, going to the dentist and getting my eyes checked. I intend to live a long time. Best to be diligent now, when I'm healthy and active. I'm buying comfort and piece of mind later.

Well being to me also means less ego, less relentless thirst for self-gratification, understanding my place in other's lives and my place in the world. This is the area where I need the most help, particularly with a book coming out next June and a summer's worth of "me me me" ahead for 2005. But I'm going to try to remember that I live my best life as one of many, with an understanding of my loyalties to others, to my family, to my home, instead of as one and only.

So I'm ready for 2005 and the huge changes it will bring. I can best appreciate them if I remember, even as they are happening, that I am still me, am good at being me, and like it.

See you tomorrow. And the whole year after...

Where to Help:

Tsumani Help is a online clearing house of resources and news related to the earthquake tragedy in Southeast Asia (via The Elegant Variation).

Susan Sontag Update:

I posted yesterday about Susan Sontag's passing. Edrants has compiled a good list of Sontag-related resources for the curious.

Eatin' Goodies:

Two food-related finds from Cool Hunting.

*Ripesense is a colored dot food manufactures can put on produce packages. The dot's color will tell you how ripe or spoiled the food is.

*The Mobile Foodie Survival Kit is a paintboxed-size container of 20 different spices and sauces. Never eat a bland airplane meal again.

Sick, Sad, CNN:

In an absolutely disguisting display of what news companies think they have to do for a fresh headline, CNN has decided to cover how the tsumani in Southeast Asia had ruined vacations for celebrities. Ruined vacations for celebrities. 59,000 people are dead and this is where CNN devotes their resources.

Repulsive (via Waxy.org).

R.I.P Susan Sontag:

Susan Sontag, one of giants of public intellectualism, has died at 71. The cause is not yet known. Sontag was the author of thirteen books including what many consider the definitive essays on illness, photography, and "camp" culture. She's been awarded the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and a MacArthur "genius" fellowship.

I became acquainted with Sontag's work in graduate school when my thesis advisor recommended I read her book On Photography for my study of depression-era tabloid photographer Weegee. On Photography may be the single best book ever written on the subject of taking pictures and is so compulsively readable that I have gone back to it several times since just for fun. I haven't read any of her other books, but always meant to.

Sontag had a reputation for being headstrong, uncompromising and a bit of an old world literary snob. Though I didn't car for that side of her, her intellect, diligence and commitment to a life of the mind were second to none. I will miss her.

Closing all Libraries:

Salinas, California, birthplace and muse of John Steinbeck, is closing its three public libraries. The city claims a severe budget shortfall, which has already led to the closing of a rec. center and civil servant wage cuts, as the reason. In November, voters turned down a half-cent sales tax increase that would have funded the library systems. The citizens of Salinas, a mostly working class argicultural town with a large Latino population, rely on the library system for computer access, literacy and job resources.

So what's the take away lesson here? Several.

1) Read your ballot at election time. You never know what you're voting for. Or against.

2) Libraries are no longer dim book warehouses where grumpy librarians say "shhhh." In the 21st century, libraries are community centers, information resources, and one of the few great equalizers in an increasingly expensive digital age. The poor, kids, the homeless and the elderly depend upon libraries for job leads, access to municipal services, homework help and Internet access when they can't afford computers at home. Just because you don't think need them, doesn't mean someone else does.

3) Nobody likes to pay taxes. Nobody thinks government is any good at managing money. That said, society needs money to run and the way the system works is that everybody pays in. If you'd prefer a setup where everybody only pays what they use, fine. Then starting tomorrow, I will no longer pay public school taxes since I have no children. I will no longer pay into veterans funds because I've never served in war. I won't pay highway taxes since I don't commute and won't pay for the free clinic in my neighborhood that provides health care to the poor since I'm not poor.

See how fast this logic unravels? Does this sound like the society you want?

This sucks. It just plain sucks (via Readerville).

Sunday Morning Shards #18

On my mind and in my reading queue this week. The "Getting Well" edition.

*All Consuming.net, a kind of Technorati for books, is a neat site designed by the endlessly creative Erik Benson. It not only tracks what books are being discussed on the blogosphere but allows you create lists from your own book collection and publish them on your weblog. The "Currently Reading" box to your immediate right is a product of All Consuming (discovered on the smooth redesign of Dansays).

*I've gotten dizzy from trying to keep track of all the Best Music of 2004 columns I've seen around. So I'm going with this column in the Dec. 15 issue of SFWeekly which also informed me that a bunch of artists I had heard of, neigh admired, were from right here in Da Bay.

*I had no idea that the legendary Ben Fong-Torres did a column on radio for SFGate. Another reason why The Gate needs RSS Feeds.

*A list of newspapers that have gotten their RSS on (via Micropersuasion).

*"The Next Big Thing" is a dense, rich public radio program like a hardy piece of maple fudge. It's been described as a baby "This American Life" but that doesn't quite get it. It's got the same smart-people-addressing-topic-in-different-ways-format but TAL is a bit more structured, sticking rigidly to Act I, Act II,everything in mellow-tones. TNBT seems to give a bit more liberty to its contributors, honoring the diversity (shrill, whispery, resigned etc.) of their voices. I'm not describing it all that well so let them. I'll just say it's quite good.

*I'm trying out this program Audio Hijack, which lets you do timed recordings of radio, music and audio streams. It may be the Tivo for Radio I've been looking for.

*Mysteries are the most borrowed types of books from the nation's public libraries (via ArtsJournal).

*2005 is being called The Year of Hyper Fragmentation. If even a couple of these predictions comes true, 2005 is going to be a very exciting year to be a cultural consumer.

Cookin for Christ(sakes):

Oy, Jesus even gets a cake on his birthday. But does anybody bake for Judah Macabee? Even a nice plate of scones? Newwwwoooooooo.

Happy Holidays ya'll. See ya on Sunday for da shards.

Rail Across America:

American Orient Express is a fleet of trains that give tours to different points of interest across the country in the old style of premiere luxury train travel. Though the tours I looked up (Pacific Coast Explorer and National Parks of the West) were blindingly expensive (Nearly $4000 per person for base-level accomodations) they really take care of you. Each train is a restored classic, with original furnishings, dishes and uniformed attendants. A porter turns down your bed at night. Some of the tours even have scholars and lecturers on board. Although I don't know if I'll ever be able to afford it, it sure sounds like fun.