LEAVING

When I moved to New York City I had $7, which I immediately spent at White Castle. Then I spent weeks going from door to door asking for a job, with those roasted peanut carts wringing my goddam guts out block by goddam block. And I will never forget the moment I'd had enough, when I said "fuck this!" and I was gonna chuck it all in, that I for some reason entered the old Tower Records on 42nd street, and this fucking song kicked off as I opened the door, just as if it was watching me. The timing was so perfect, I WAS that dude walking down the street singing.  I don't give a fuck about the band, or the album, or the song itself, but I will always remember that moment as the moment I realized I belonged in the fucking city. It was the moment of my life. And I'll never forget it. - XMASTIME

The only problem with living in New York City is that the only stars you ever see are on the ground. - XMASTIME

I've never really thought of myself as a "real" New Yorker, but since I've moved away I've had a hard time looking at this blog and not feeling somewhat distant from it. After all, I had almost 17,000 posts before, all while living in Brooklyn. I don't live in Brooklyn anymore, so I look at all the thousands of daily, mean-nothing posts as I would a scrapbook or journal, which is both really fun and totally depressing.- XMASTIME

 This reminds me of when Op and I joined the Williamsburg Softball League in 2003. We assumed everybody hated us and would turn their noses up at us, so we parked ourselves next to the Turkey's Nest toilets (Favorite Playah shoutout!) and hated on everybody. To our great disappointment, over the years we learned that most everybody was actually really nice, if not way nicer than ourselves, even. It was a total fucking drag in a way that can only happen in your youth. - XMASTIME

Maybe it's because the trip was such a whirlwind, about 36 hours, maybe half of which was even remotely sober, but I shouldn't be this sad about leaving Williamsburg after my visit this weekend. I mean, it's not like four months ago when I was leaving for good, and Rrthur (YES ladies, THAT Rrthur) graciously pretended he couldn't hear me sniffling and chewing my fist in the passenger seat.

And it's not just my friends I miss so much…it's even the other faces I've simply gotten so used to seeing after so many years. I was flooded with people happy to see me after these months whom ten years ago, when softball started and Op and I would park ourselves in the back of the Turkey's Nest and hate on everybody, it would be unfathomable to think how happy I would be to see them. As the game marched towards its end Sunday, knowing it would be the last Reel to Reel game I'd ever be involved with, I really got sad. Last 8th inning ever. Last chance to use my "coming down!" joke with Op between innings. Last time ever to yell "see ya!" when Watty would pop one up behind the catcher. Last 9th inning ever. Last out ever. Last last.

One thing I have to understand is how long I lived there. Not just in number of years itself, but in WHICH years they were. I mean, 25-39 are pretty fucking important years. And besides seeing the faces I love and the places and things I walked by thousands of times over the years, pretty much everything that's happened to me as an adult happened while I was in New York. Not only personally, but culturally. The Sopranos has come and gone, and every episode I've seen, I was in New York. Bands, movies, events. Kids born. The Yankees Dynasty. Falling in love, moving on. Even stupid shit like Sex and the City. And on, and on, and on. The Golden Age of Williamsburg, and other parts of Brooklyn as well. Everything happened while I was seeing those faces, walking by those places. Christ, when I moved there it wasn't a given that anybody had an email address, much less Facebook or a cell phone. To look back on things that happened and people I knew while living at 100 Metropolitan, and to realize that those things happened as far back as 1998 kinda freaks me the fuck out.

Riding back on the train by myself for 7 hours didn't help either; it's the only time I've really thought gee, I wish I had a wife. I'm always leaving alone.

Anyways. Now I'm back in Richmond, and I'll be fine, but man. I actually heard myself thinking yesterday "you know, you need to make all those years count for something", which of course is so gay it snapped me outta my funk. For the moment, I feel compelled to write everything I remember down, a Proustian feat of thousands of paging simply detailing every single thing I remember. Looking back, there certainly are divisions of years and people that fit into neatly enclosed chapters. Which will last until The Big Bang Theory comes on tonight and I get sucked in but hey, you never know, right?
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On January 1, 1998 my buddy Ryan and I packed ourselves into my Jeep Cherokee along with everything I owned in the whole world (which consisted solely of hundreds of books I knew I’d never read and multiple copies of every Ramones record) and drove three hundred and eleven miles from Tappahannock, Virginia to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where, after Ryan drove my Jeep back to Virginia, I'd begin a new life that would stretch over the next fifteen years. I still miss it every day.