old friends

If you were online in SF-social areas today, you know that Jay Lake lost his six+ year standoff with cancer.  I've been trying to come up with a blog post that would be meaningful, would say something about Jay and his impact on so many lives, those of us who knew him, and those who only knew his words. But everything feels trite, and I said my farewells to him already, before the fact.  The immense exhaustion he - and his family - felt at the end, I can only imagine, and sympathize with. But Jay would not give an inch until death took the mile.

Two things I'll always remember about Jay: 1) the slyly gleeful look on his face before he dropped a bon mot into the conversation, and 2) the advice he gave when I was stressing about a new, risky project - "fuck that, just do it."

Joy and determination. Two pretty good legacies to leave, I think.



(Jay was militant about not believing in god, or any 'afterlife' he didn't have decent evidence for, and so I'd ask that anyone commenting here refrain from even the most heartfelt of heavenly/better place platitudes. It feels disrespectful, somehow, to me.)