My room has been condensed to a stack of boxes and milk crates in the middle of the floor; if I’ve learned anything from preparing for the big move, it’s that packing is way easier when you own nothing but a stereo and speakers, some found furniture that will be returning to the street from whence it came, and metric fuckload of books, albums, and comics. Packing in preperation for this Saturday was actually easier than the last time I moved, when it was just me, three suitcases, and a flight to New York with a layover in Chicago, largely because it’s much simpler to throw everything you own in boxes than it is to try and squeeze the books and CDs you can’t live without into your luggage along with the bare minimum of clothes needed to survive until you can buy new ones. And even then, for the longest while the first thing I did with any signifigant amount of money I got in the two months or so between landing in New York and getting a steady job was buy cigarettes and a new record. Priorities, you understand, and a neighborhood full of cheap pizza to survive on in the meantime.

My last week living in Alphabet City is quickly coming to an end, and so far I’ve managed to stick to the right side of the crowbar seperation between thoughtful and maudlin. Most of last weekend was spent hitting up favorite down-the-street places to eat that won’t so much be down the street any more come this weekend – 7A, Crif Dogs, Two Boots, Sal’s, and a few others, all the places, except for dearly departed Joey’s (Oh, those fries! Oh, that one waitress! Oh, that chicken and waffles!), that kept me alive at first and made the patch of island South of 14th and East of 1st home afterwards. Some people make landmarks out of statuary and favorite shops, all of mine are places with tables, preferably drinks, and late enough hours to keep me mostly standing no matter what time I come crawling in.

The best protection against sappy sentimentalism, though, has easily been work and the mad hours the game I’m producing has demanded over the last week. Weeks. Month. After what feels like a forever of being just off schedule, just behind where we need to be, and always in a precarious enough position where the slightest problem can lay waste to the best laid plans, we’re quickly approaching the all or nothing hour where Gold is delivered and the game code locked down. That Gold delivery happens the Monday after we cart my stuff over to the new place is just one more thing, one more day that if I can just get through, things will be all right. The work stress over the last few weeks has lapped up everything around it for fuel, making me shakey and grouchy and feeling always on the edge of taking somebody’s head off, and my own many and myriad neurosis surely haven’t helped any. Thank god for Girl and her handling of…pretty much everything important to the moving process. While work’s ruled everything around me and I’ve spent the last few weeks gradually rattling away into pieces, she’s found the place, ordered the army of new furniture, and set up the truck we’re travelling to the Bronx on Saturday morning to pick up. I can only assume some sort of amazing past-life karma that led to her sticking with me – you know that monk in all those pictures, the one setting himself on fire in protest? This guy. There’s no other rational answer.

So what have I done with my time recently, when not working or sleeping? Packing. Buying board games. Going to see the Long Blondes, and remembering how great it is to dance at a rock show. Buying up board games with the crazed eyes of a man possessed. Playing through all three Ratchet & Clank games, and being consistently amazed at how Insomniac managed to put out three games so inventive, fun, and balanced in the space of as many years. Thinking about and missing game design, and realizing there’s nothing but poor time management and my own feeling sorry for myself keeping me from getting back into it. Getting caught in the rain on the walk home, and not even caring because the last week has felt like living in a dog’s mouth. Watching Mel Brooks movies over the actual rented movies that have to go back the next day. Listening to the first song off the new Art Brut album over and over again, like I’m afraid I’ll wake up tomorrow and it’ll be gone. Realizing I’ve all but forgotten how to make a mixed tape and relearning a song at a time. Y’know, stuff.

Hopefully, once moving is done and dusted and work settles down a little, posting here will take on some sense of regularity. There are actual thoughts about actual games and more waiting in the wings, all in various states of draft. That’s at least a week and a world of things to do away, though, so we’ll see what happens.

Filed under: Wreck your life