Exit Music (For a Blog Editor)

I thought for a moment about making the item just below this one my Unfair Park farewell -- just a few drops of pigs blood, then adios. But, no, not when I've been saving this: Radiohead at the Music Hall at Fair Park on March 29, 1998. For those who are and aren't going tonight -- and those who've been waiting outside the American Airlines Center since midnight.

Now, then. To the thing I've been avoiding writing about for two weeks. Of the 14,592 who've come and gone through these doors since I've been at the Dallas Observer, beginning Christmas Eve 1991, only one other got to say goodbye: Laura Miller, when she decamped to run for city council. That these guys didn't toss me out as soon as they heard the words "Dallas Morning News" says more than I ever could about the company for which I've worked since I was 23. They will even let me loiter two days longer, to buy me a farewell burger and let me clean out my office, which may take till August 21. Hell, I may even pop on tomorrow to write about the fact there's now a fourth candidate for Edwin Flores's seat. (Good Lord, is there a 12-step program for this?) But I can tell: They'd like me to move on, if only so they can. Fair enough.

I tried all day to pretend this was just another council-committee Monday, no big deal. But the small breakdown I had last night -- at 7:23, over the kitchen sink, drying dishes, lasted seven minutes, not that I noticed -- reminded me that, no, not quite. Tomorrow someone else will be charged with finding the first item of the day; the last one too. And all the rest in between. And for the first time in six years, I'll have a weekday breakfast with my son before he goes to school.

I said this earlier somewhere in the comments: If they'd let me, I'd run Unfair Park till Bob Mong hands me my News ID one week from today. It's been my thing, my everything, since March 1, 2006, and breaking up is hard to do. But Joe, Anna, Leslie, Brantley, Greg and my old friends Jim and Patrick will do great things with this blog, and this paper, in my absence. That's exactly what they all told me when they walked out of the first-ever staff meeting to which I wasn't invited this evening. As giddy as I am about what lies ahead for me at my new job overseeing Dallasnews.com, I'm also excited to see what they do with Unfair Park. Fewer items about KZEW and old buildings, I imagine. I know, right? Whew.

So now on the way to work every morning I'll drive by my childhood home, my high school and my home away from home for the last 20 years. What baggage? Anyway. See you soon, right? Just remember: I'll only be a click away. But I gotta go now. Got Radiohead tickets.