We wrapped production on season two of Tabletop on Tuesday night. When I got home from the set, Anne asked me how I was feeling.

“Do you feel sad that it’s over, or relieved that you get to catch your breath?”

I grabbed a glass out of the kitchen and walked across our living room.

“I’m tired, so I’m looking forward to a couple days of being a fat piece of shit on the couch, but I’m going to miss playing games all day for my job.”

I poured an Arrogant Bastard Ale out of my kegerator — a gift to myself — that’s been in the living room since it arrived a little over a month ago.

“That makes sense,” Anne said.

“Yeah, and I’m really proud of what we did this season, so I feel sort of sad to say goodbye to my crew for another year.”

I filled my glass and took a sip. “Ahhh that’s good beer.”

“This thing is the Leg Lamp,” she said, pointing to my kegerator.

“You mean it’s a thing of indescribable beauty that should be in the front window?”

“No, I mean that it’s a thing that really needs to be in your office and not the living room.”

I took a drink of my beer. “But if it was in my office, we’d have to walk all the way down the hall to get beer.”

She hesitated and I pounced. “See? That’s science. I win.”

I sat on the couch and she looked at me. “I’m going to move it as soon as I clean up the disaster that is where my office used to be*. Thank you for being patient.” I hoped she would not use up all the glue on purpose, as we settled down to watch the season finale of Game of Thrones.

Today, I’m starting to get back to normal. I’ve slept a lot the last two nights, so I only feel a little fuzzy in my brain. Also today, the newest episode of Tabletop was released! It’s Smash Up, with Rich Sommer, Cara Santa Maria, and Jen Timms.

Watching this today, I am once again blown away by the magnificent work of our editors. This game has a lot going on, and they worked very hard to make it understandable and entertaining. Tabletop is a show that is made in editing, and I realized while watching Smash Up today that the last five days of production, while very long and intense, represent only the beginning of the process that makes Tabletop possible. So, Yasu and Steve, if you’re reading this: thank you for your incredible work. I’m grateful to have you on my team.

*During production, my office becomes a huge pile of boxes and games and all kinds of stuff that just gets set aside until production wraps. It’s currently the worst it’s ever been, because in addition to the usual cruft from production, there are several boxes of things I brought home from conventions last month, as well as a whole lot of homebrew that’s bottle conditioning. It’s a hot mess.