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All of my roommates are moving out this week. My house always has the most drama on the block—the most cars out front, the rowdiest parties in the backyard. But over the past month, it’s gone over the top. For my wedding, there were dozens of cars in and out of my driveway every day. Now the guys are all moving out, so the driveway is loaded with four cars and a huge U-Haul.

Since there are 3 guys moving out, they’ve each recruited a distinct group of friends and family members to help them out. This mob of people has taken over my house, making laps up and down the stairs with stacks of brown boxes. I feel like I’m in the early scene of Home Alone when Kevin’s extended family has turned his house into chaos.

I need to get this out about Home Alone. There’s a scene early in the movie where the pizza deliver boy defends the $140 bill to Kevin’s dad by explaining that it’s 14 pizzas at $10 per pizza. I was 12 when I saw that scene, and I couldn’t imagine the big city life where pizzas actually cost that much money. Everytime I ordered pizza from then on, I’d think about that scene, wondering when that magical day will come where I paid double digits for a single pizza. In the 17 years since I first saw that movie, it hasn’t happened once.

This afternoon after the Suns beat the Lakers (now we’re up 3 games to 1), I started getting high on the thought of getting rid of clutter in the house that isn’t mine. One habit of my daily life is constantly getting rid of things that I no longer need. On any given week, I spend 2 hours getting things out of my house: donating, trashing, and recycling. Maher does this about once every 2-6 years. When I’m on one of my purging expeditions through the house, I always have to stack his stuff in the corner because I can’t get rid of it. It hit me that I could do a purging finale, the greatest of all purgings.

The project started simple, but quicky got out of hand. This house has about six versions of the same kitchen utensil. So if you have a golden brown grilled cheese sandwich that you need to flip, you can use any of the six spatulas. Since our household is so trendy, they’re each half black and half stainless steal. So I emptied dozens of utensils out of the drawer and sorted them out on the countertop, the same way you’d organize a deck of cards. I kept one of each, eight total. This was so outrageously satisfying that I kept going through the kitchen, one drawer and cabinet after another.

Three hours later, I had packed up three large boxes with pots, pans, cups, coffee mugs, and storage containers.

I emptied the junk drawers of all of Maher’s technostuff: iPod accessories, microphones, CDs, and dozens of AA batteries. I looked at the DVD cabinet like a cheetah looks at an impala. I organized and sealed up three boxes of sci-fi movies that I never have to see again. (Finally!) The only things that were mine were some episodes of the Real World Road Rules Challenge and a season of The Simpsons. I have so many empty drawers now. I knocked out half of the books on my shelves. Now there’s no books on music, only books about design and religion.

All in all, I got rid of at least 400 pounds of stuff today. Awesome.

I kind of feel like a Dad whose kids are moving out of the house. They’re all off to the next chapter in their life. I wave goodbye at the driveway then step back in the house, lock the door, and keep watching the NBA playoffs. My life is comfortable because I’ve worked hard to make it that way.

Tonight the Suns beat the Mavericks in double overtime. These are the two best team in the NBA, and this game proved to be the most exciting game of the year. What made the victory so sweet is that we were outscored in the 3rd quarter 38-16, which helped put us in a 15 point hole in the 4th quarter.

At this point in the game I knew my perfect day had gone horribly wrong. I showed up at Zipps promptly at 5:00 PM for the game, only to see an empty sports bar. All six waitresses told me in unison that the game was at 7:00 PM. I came back home and did some more work. Two hours later I stepped into a Zipps again, except this time it was a packed house staring up the final minutes of the first half were ticking down. I was so angry that I became sick and almost threw up at half time.

(It hard to write about a day that involved a sports game because I feel like I have to be a sports writer. I don’t have the patience to write like that and people don’t have the patience to read about it. So I’ll just stick to my experience of the game, not the game itself.)

This game was super exciting because it was a battle of the  top two MVP candidates: Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitski. Steve Nash scored 10 points in the last 55 seconds of the game. Let me say that again: Steve Nash scored 10 points in less than 1 minutes. Steve made every play his team needed to come out with a victory. He stole the ball, forced turnovers, drew charges, found the open man. Shoot, he even made the defensive rebound that allowed the final second tick off the clock for the victory. He was awesome. Unstoppable.

I was at Zipps with 100s of other fans and I celebrated like a madman. I have no desire to be cool about winning. I yell and pound my chest. I give strangers high fives and hugs. Why? Because I love the Suns. And when and where can a grown up have such raw and real emotion? Zipps was boiling with the joy of victory at the end of the 2nd overtime. It was party!

The Bizarre After Party

Candyce is out in California for the rest of the week, so I had to celebrate on my own. That was until my house filled up with friends who wanted to watch the newest episode of Lost. That party was interrupted by a stocky Indian who knocked on my door and told me he was out of gas. (This is a very Lost-like thing to happen.) His behavior was odd, so I kept two friends close by as I walked out of the garage to his car. At this point he was peeing in my yard. I thumped the can of gas on my shoulder and scolded him, “You can pee on a man’s yard and expect him to give you free gas!” He apologized and began walking away from my palm tree before he had finished his business. It wasn’t pretty.

He drove a beat-up Bronco, a gray version of what OJ got in trouble in. I opened up his gas cap and turned up the can and let it chug. Ten seconds later, and he had his shirt off and started flexing for Nick. Apparently he wanted to have a flex-off with my stocky roommate, but Nick wasn’t up for it. It was bizarre seeing this chubby Indian man flexing his flab in front of my house by the light of my garage. I nodded my head to show how impressed I was.

This little big man proved to be not so bright. I pulled my car around to give him a jump. As his Bronco charged, he explained that he has trouble with his battery because his massive sound system kills his alternator. Thirty seconds later he hopped behind his wheel, fired up his car, and then turned up his Bob Marley loud enough to shake the neighbor’s windows. This, of course, killed his car. The street went dark and silent. The three of us stood their in disbelief by how stupid this guy was.

We had to start all over again. Ten minutes later he was rolling and chugging out of the neighborhood. No woman no cry…

Candyce and I had great seats at 3 Suns games in the past week:

Last night: Suns vs. Hornets
Wednesday: Suns vs. Bobcats
Last Friday: Suns vs. Pacers

We were late for the Wednesday game against the Bobcats, but we got our fair share of entertainment in our overtime victory. We were late again last night up against the Hornets because of dense traffic, but we had an extra bit of fun because Pat Burke left us some “meet the players” passes at the front gate. So after the game Candyce and I winded our way down beneath the stands near the locker room. We got to see Pat again and have a fun chat. Then Marion and STAT came out stopped by our table on their way out. It was a brief encounter with the players, but it was exciting for both of us. They are just such a great team with such great guys.

A big reason why we’ve been to three games in a row like that is I realized it’s after the All-Star break and that means its the road the playoffs. We have a really good chance at the Championship this year, and I can’t miss a minute of the action. So that means we’re going to be downtown a lot for the next month or two. It doesn’t matter how much time I sit in traffic or how much gas I spend at the pump. These are the events I never got to experience as a kid because I lived in a small town. But now I live in the big city, and it’s time to do big city things.

After last night’s game we met up with Danny, Johnny, and Ali at Cafe Boa in Phoenix. It was fun sitting on the patio under the nighttime stars. I just love the winter because you can see Orion’s belt in the sky. Life is good.