Alright. Here we go.
Now here we are thirty years later... Or eleven, to paraphrase the Mountain Goats... I don’t know who will read this. I haven’t touched this page much in the last several years, save for a Homestuck/COVID joke at the beginning of the pandemic. Tumblr has become strange to me... None of the folks I used to admire still hold much court here, as they’ve moved over to Twitter like me. But I had to come back to write something about the passing of time, even if I don’t post anything after this. In fact, if this closes the book on a long and weird era, that will satisfy me...
At the end of June, I’ll move from New York to Boston with my wife to start a new chapter in our lives together. That will mark the end of nine consecutive years living in the Big Apple plus two previous summers of unpaid internships. When I first moved into my shoebox of a converted hotel room at the old George Washington on East 23rd Street, I was all of twenty years old. I couldn’t drink and I didn’t know a damn thing about self-sufficiency, but I thought I could take on New York on my own. I survived on dollar dumplings and getting invited to dinner at my friend’s house in the West Village. I emailed the Tumblr offices and head honchos daily looking for a job. I went to concerts and threw my wiry body into every mosh pit I could find. I explored every inch of the city from the tip of the Bronx to the Nassau County line to Staten Island. At that point in my life, I had no inhibitions; I wanted to take in everything.
Over the following decade and change, I did just that. I fell in love several times, even when it hurt at the end. Dreams changed, died, and came back to life. I got lost and found, fell apart, put myself back together again, and went out to get a slice of pizza and some garlic knots. Now, at thirty-one and married, I look back and ask myself - with a smile, of course - “What the fuck was I thinking when I did all of that?” But I’m glad I did it all, despite the massive credit card debt and the irritable bowel syndrome that I accrued over the years.
Throughout most of my time in New York, I documented my findings and experiences here on Tumblr. I would not suggest you go back and read through my old posts unless you want a heaping helping of cringe. I looked back at some of my first posts from New York and wanted to slap the old Will Sisskind in the back of the head. But I can’t take that back, and I don’t want to firebomb this page for the sake of “wiping the slate clean.” So this site will remain up as I continue to post over on my Wordpress, It is, after all, a document of a person - or several people - who had a good time back in the day.
But let this post close the book on this page, just as I close the book on my time in New York. I might come back someday, but for now, I will call Boston home. Perhaps I will start a Great Boston Escapade and launch a missive about my adventures there. On the other hand, I feel old and my back aches, so I might go quietly and sit out on the back porch with a beer and write about the squirrels attacking the birdfeeder.
Thank you for everything, New York, and thank you, Tumblr. We’ll see each other again.
