THIS MAN WAS very good at standing still. I used to live near there, used to drink coffee at the coffeehouse, and every morning he would come in and get his to go. Then, rain or shine or fog or earthquake, he would stand outside and calmly drink it, standing. The headlines on the daily papers in the paper boxes at that corner could be shouting out the most awful news imaginable, and the alternative weeklies would be hammering out alternative headlines, and this man just stood there, not reading anything, and sipped his coffee.

His eyes were open. There were always plenty of tables. There was a bench right there, outside the door. There were a lot of benches in the park. But he seemed to prefer to stand, still as a log pile. Sometimes he would even have a refill. He was always clean and appropriately dressed, never seemed to suffer the weather. White hair, white beard ...

Maybe that's what he was doing: maybe he was being God.

On my way away from Him yesterday morning, I kicked up a marble on the sidewalk and it wobbled into a crack and rolled a straight line to the intersection of that crack and another one. X marked the spot. I picked up the marble and decided to hold it in my hand all day. I decided that its smoothness, its perfect little worldliness, would be just the Thing to keep me from going insane all day yesterday, holding it. Even if I accidentally drank too much coffee. Even if anything – bus runs over my foot, big wind blows my chickens away, aliens stoled my wife and cat, wife stoled my travel mug, ants. Anything. I'm ready. Nobody ever lost their marbles while holding onto a marble. That I know of.

So I held it in my hand everywhere I went and whatever I did, including lunch, which happened just down the road on 24th Street, between Folsom and South Van Ness. There's a Thai restaurant there that was news to me, CLG, or Chili Lemon Garlic (Thai Cafe). Three good things. And there were three of us: Gina, Michelle, and me, Dan. GMD. CLG has a RNP (real nice patio), so we SOT.

"What's with the marble?" asked Gina.

"This?" I said. "Oh, this is a little trick to keep me sane today. I found it on the sidewalk. I'm going to hold it."

She said something about holding a stone once, to try and keep from biting her fingernails.

"That's nice," I said. (Sane people say things like that.)

Chopped upon meat is how they describe larb on the menu. It's $5.95, and you can get chicken, beef, pork, squid, or duck, which is more kinds of larb than I've ever seen at a Thai restaurant – so that's something.

But when I asked if the beef was ground beef or beef beef, meaning steak, she said ground beef. And when I looked sad, she pointed out another salad called neua num tok, which is sliced beef steak with chili, onions, cucumber, mint, rice powder, and lime dressing. All the same things as larb almost, plus or minus rice powder and/or lemongrass. Same price: $5.95.

I got it and it was good, even though the meat was sliced instead of chopped upon. You can't have everything.

You can have too many things. We ordered duck noodle soup ($5.95), because I had to have it, and pineapple fried rice ($7.95), because Gina had to have it. Michelle had to have pad thai ($6.25) and wonton soup ($6.25). She's eating for two, but then she's only about half the size of an average American to begin with, so technically she's only eating for one. She's ordering for two. And I'm on a gain-weight diet. I ate all the duck soup and all the not-larb, and then some. The soup was great; duck noodle soup, as you know, always googy-goos my choo-choo. It's just one of my favorite things to eat in the world, and I don't think I ever had some I didn't love.

Pad thai I'm not that into, so I didn't even taste any. Michelle liked it. And I did finish off her wonton soup, which was very good, featuring big slices of tender barbecued pork and crispy celery. The wontons were long gone by the time I got in there.

As for pineapple fried rice with raisins, cashews, pineapples, bubble-gum and sody-pop ... short of making all kinds of all-out fun of Gina for ordering it – but she's my cute little baby sister, speaking of googy-goo, so what can I say? If cute little baby sisters can't order pineapple fried rice, then who in the world can?

The patio tables have small holes like a Chinese checker board, perfect for holding marbles while you eat. I left mine there. If you find it, hold it.

CLG Chili Lemon Garlic Thai Cafe. 3166 24th St. (at Folsom), S.F. (415) 826-8199. Daily: 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Takeout available. No alcohol. MasterCard, Visa. Wheelchair accessible.

Email Dan Leone