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If you depress easily or can't take life's realities, stop reading and go do something else. I'll be yakking about what little time we have left here on earth and how we use it.

Saw Bobo, a real good friend of mine, yesterday. He'd just come from a friends' funeral and we were talking about how we've both lost mutual friends and family members. We go back a long ways and share some pretty good times. We both share the belief that everyday is a gift and should be used to the best of our abilities. Neither of us think nothing of doing what strikes our fancy. Be it going on a road trip or just sitting outside watching the world go by. We're not barflies any more so our circle is quite small. We can count on one hand, outside of family, those people who still mean a lot to us. People who have deep ties to us. People who we'd want to deliver our eulogy, be a pallbearer, or be genuinely happy to see when we're on our last legs. These are folks we'd help in a heartbeat with no questions asked nor favors returned. These are the people who make up our core.

Unforunately we're starting to see some of them passing on before their time. Ususally we find this out in the obits too late. We'll visit their family in the usual way, at the local funeral home. Glad hand a few, hug the family and say the required things ("he sure looks natural"). He's dead! How can you look natural with a Tammy Fay baker facial? Geeze. Dressed in a suit or something other than what you wore that defined you. My brother was laid out in a fucking suit. He only wore something like that at his or a sibs wedding. He was happiest when he had jeans and flannel shirts and was hunting something. My uncle was sent off with his work clothes, a 6 pack of beer, a Readers Digest and cigars. That's who he was. Me, I want a biker t-shirt, jeans and my leather vest. That's me.

Death is a taboo subject to us. We avoid it like a gonna-get-the-shits-after-eating-this meal. We can't face our own mortality. We spend huge amounts of money to follow guidelines on how we're supposed to look and be presented as well as how our remains will be disposed of. No, we're gonna live forever...somehow. Exercise, good diets, vitamins and whatever they're hawking that we can ill afford. We try and avoid the subject as much as possible. We'd rather talk about anything else but that! But when we finally reach that point when we realize it's gonna happen then it's the only thing we want to deal with. Everything else is bullshit. We will die leaving our loved ones and true friends to remember us in their own way. Other who were co-workers and aquaintences will deal with our departure in other ways. They'll share work/personal experiences and remember us for our interaction rather than who we truly were. Only through our loved ones and true friends will we continue to live on.

This rant is probably a bit disorganized but I've never been known to be able to stay on one thought foe too long much less stringing a cognizant conversation together. But I'm sure you get the idea by now.

Value what you have in friends and family while you can. Money can buy a lot of distractions. But it can't buy love and true friendship. You gotta earn them and really work at nurturing them. Only then, when your time comes, will you be able to pass on knowing you made a difference. Or as Bobo says made your mark in the world.