Crushing Krisis

Category Archives: Year 3

Highlights from 2002-2003

Tuesday, August 26, 2003

I like to think of myself as the ultimate indicator of whether any particular cultural trend has reached zeitgeist levels of proliferation, but in what we collectively refer to as reality i can think of at least two more trust-worthy sources to defer to. One are daily newspapers like the Philadelphia Inquirer and the second is the Oxford English Dictionary.

Not coincidentally, within the last few weeks both have indicated that BLOG is a word that has been inexorably wedged into our collective language, through the above linked article and the (somewhat shocking) inclusion of the term in the next version of the OED.

My response is, of course, “I told you so.” After all, i have been doing it for three years now, to the day.

While the OE inclusion is surprising, the Inquirer article left a bigger impact on me — if only because it neglected to mention this site.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Crushing Krisis could be the longest running Philadelphia blog (now that Rabi is conveniently out of the way in new york); I have to slog through all of the links here and here to make absolutely sure.

The concept is staggering; it doesn’t mean that i set a trend, but at least that i tapped into it first and have (so far) held onto it the longest. Through this passive act of ignorance i suddenly realized both how important this has become to me, what it really is, and how often i do not come through for it.

Long gone are those days, though, when i represented all that is common and exciting about blogging. I am not an active linker, and i do not engage in many of the trends and memes that are so often definitive of the blogging community. I am more interesting in reporting, either on my daily life, or on the people and communications i observe, and in singing and playing both my own songs and others’ through Trio and Blogathon.

Whether or not i’m putting in my best effort on a daily basis, new people continue to happen onto this page for the first time, some of them familiar and some entirely strange. All of my roommates (current and former) read it regularly, as do most of my close friends. Some of my professors have been known to stop by. This weekend, Rabi and I had just sat down to a refreshing Bubble Tea when my cell phone was rung by my god-brother, who i haven’t seen or spoken to in almost four years, but who had found this through Google. He told me that “Hide Your Love Away” was his favorite song so far, and said we should hang out sometime soon.

That’s what i love — how this has been woven together with my “real life;” not so much that you cannot see the seams, but well enough that it never quite unravels. I love that people i haven’t talked to, people i have forgotten, people i have never met can see a sketch or snapshot of my life at any given moment. Sometimes writing for it can seem boring, or tedious, or invasive, but if i were to stop, to actually give up for a single minute in the days or weeks that separate my posts, then suddenly this mirror of my identity would just turn into a photograph, taken from far away.

There have been times i have loved this more than i do now, and times that i have disliked it less, but i don’t think i have ever felt so comfortable about it. Thank you for reading. Thank you for listening. Thank you for caring. And, starting today, thank you for talking back in the comments section

Happy Birthday to this.

Also filed in Philly, august 26th, rabi | | Comments (2)

Thursday, August 21, 2003

On Monday Aim invited me to join her at a Radiohead concert. The concept of it nearly rolled my eyes back into my head; an arena of young urban hipsters as or more obsessed with their band as I am with Tori Amos, all with overt political or stylistic agendas, all of whom would undoubtably frown at me for having bought the new Michelle Branch album.

It sounded like a challenge, not to mention a good time.

Poured into my tightest blue jeans and snuggest brown t-shirt, as we walked to our seats i scanned the crowd of trendy young men and realized that i have resorted to co-opting a slightly queer style of dress and carriage because it just works for me … i am small-framed and relatively slim and no longer trying desperately to attract strange women wherever i go. If pressed i could not explain it; it’s just my need to feel wanted, i suppose. I’m not sure what stops me from showing up in cargo pants and a stained flannel shirt. Maybe it’s that i spent the 90’s wearing that, or maybe it’s that i like to approximate an accurate interior self-image so that i feel as though i actually stand out in a crowd as me.

Ultimately, all eyes were on the stage and none on my inanely logoed tee or my inordinately tight ass-hugging pants. I have rarely seen such a polite audience held in rapt attention at such a huge rock show. I am not good with Radiohead’s titles – ever since hearing Kid A their albums pass by me like symphonies – but some songs still stuck out just by virtue of how they were achieved. A hypnotic electronic piano version of “Like Spinning Plates,” a spastic and brittle “Idioteque,” chiming xylophone and the faint singing of the lawn section on “No Surprises,” and “Everything In It’s Right Place” prefaced as “this is a song about the good old days.”

As it echoed back at me from Thom, and then the effects pedals on the stage, i just thought … Yes.

Also filed in aim, concerts, music, radiohead, self image | | Comments (2)

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Favorite post-Radiohead concert trying desperately to exit the parking lot quote: Peter – “Aim, if she hits this car we are going to get out and jump on her hood like monkeys at Six Flags Safari.”

Runner Up: Aim – “Hey, you, Urban Trendsters, come here!”

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Saturday, August 2, 2003

Years are funny because their rhythm is just slightly different for everyone.

My years used to be empty stretches of barren land, awful summer droughts of excitement before the start of school effectively canceled out my birthday through coinciding with it then quickly escalating into Christmas only to dramatically collapse into Winter doldrums, which would only be broken by the end of school and the beginning of another punishing summer. I had no family events, yearly excursions, and special projects to look forward to. It was miserable.

Everything is so different now. My birthday has become part of a week of Welcome Back parties collectively known as MelonBowl, Halloween is treated with all of the pagan reverence it deserves, Christmas lasts for two or more weeks as i catch up to everyone i meant to give presents to, i inevitably get involved with a play in the winter, spring brings a combined Elsie/Ross birthday blowout as well as our newly inaugurated Lyndzapalooza, and then with June as a short breather i am launched into the frenzy of Blogathon, followed by a rushed retrospective as CK celebrates its anniversary on August 26th, which then leads me again into my own birthday preparations.

Early this week i fantasized that if i were to win a huge lottery i would whisk all the people responsible for giving me so many amazing things to look forward to away to a quaint little town in a Canada or France or China, and we would spend all year celebrating life, without a moment to catch our breath. And, then i realized, we do that here anyway.

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Blogathon: 24/24 – In My Life

Sunday, July 27, 2003

In My Life (mp3/ra)

originally performed by The Beatles
washburn acoustic and lead vocals – peter

subject of this song – everyone who has contributed to, sponsored, or visited the page today

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Blogathon: 20/24 – Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Sunday, July 27, 2003

Somewhere Over The Rainbow (mp3/ra)

originally performed by Judy Garland

arrangement by Anthony C.
lead vocals – lindsay
chorused larivee acoustic – anthony

Also filed in best of, bthon'03, lindsay | | Comments (0)

Blogathon: 17/24 – Wait

Sunday, July 27, 2003

Wait (mp3/ra)

written by Peter M. & Gina M.
washburn acoustic and lead vocals – peter
premier electric and harmony vocals – gina

Also filed in bthon'03, gina | | Comments (0)

Blogathon: 15/24 – Beautiful

Sunday, July 27, 2003

Beautiful (mp3/ra)

originally performed Christina Aguilera
lead vocals – erika
washburn acoustic and backing vocals – peter

Also filed in bthon'03, erika | | Comments (0)

Blogathon: 13/24 – November Rain

Sunday, July 27, 2003

November Rain (mp3/ra)

originally performed by Guns & Roses
yamaha acoustic and lead vocals – gina

Also filed in bthon'03, gina | | Comments (0)

Blogathon: 10/24 – Candy Says

Sunday, July 27, 2003

Candy Says (mp3/ra)

originally performed by The Velvet Underground
premier electric and lead vocals – peter

Also filed in bthon'03 | | Comments (0)

Blogathon: 9/24 – A Few Bars of Goodbye

Sunday, July 27, 2003

A Few Bars of Goodbye (mp3/ra)

written by Peter M.
washburn acoustic and lead vocals – peter
harmony vocals and coolness – sara

Also filed in bthon'03 | | Comments (0)

Monday, July 7, 2003

I am not a car guy, but this weekend i found myself catching my breath when I was first introduced to Ross’s gold 1967 Camaro in full daylight, its top just finishing its retreat to the back hood. We rode in the Camaro almost exclusively the entire time we were in New Hampshire. My favorite part was the looks… at gas stations and stop lights, wide eyed, covetous, keenly appraising the four of us in the car (five, after we were joined by Martha).

I had never been to New Hampshire before. The names and numbers of the highways that got us there were meaningless to me, made all the more alien by the day-early fireworks that exploded in the night all around us. The state itself was equally as foreign; different slang, different prices, a different way of driving. Vehicles on the Maine beach’s parking lot all open and empty, the Philadelphian in me feeling almost compelled to vandalize them for being so trusting.

It felt more real than Philadelphia, though, as if the commonality of an experience makes it less like reality. Like I was a trendy kid eschewing the new pop album to embrace indy critical darling, only with New Hampshire instead of something off of Barksuk records and irreverent, heathenish, treasonous wit rather than any kind of nationalistic spirit. I still wondering the same wonder: is it good because I like it, or because no one else I know does?

Friday morning I woke up at eight twenty seven, so that by the time I rubbed my eyes, stretched, and walked to the kitchen it was eight thirty. Time for work; not even alien surroundings can convince my brain that it is not time to communicate efficiently at half past eight. Saturday saw me rise at the same time, again unprovoked and exactly.

I resolved that over ninety percent of my liquid intake would be alcohol. I was that guy, the guy from the big city turning a peaceful sub-urban vacation into a bender. I was that guy, drink in hand at all times, but even while i went through the motions i knew that it wasn’t me; it felt exactly the same as playing a snooty New York writer trapped on a Pacific Island for my acting class: i knew the paces to go through, but I never felt connected to the character.

On Sunday morning, hung over and ready to head home at eight thirty on the nose, I finally felt like I understood the both of us; we were using a change in location to attempt to focus our image, but without any normal references to work from we were skewed, suddenly out of control and unlike the selves that we had grown accustomed to.

If New England can at once transform and fascinate me to such a degree, how would I react to Alabama or California, England or Denmark, India or Australia? How frightening to think that all of my weakness and confidence might stem from a place outside instead of a place inside, and that a simple change of scenery could alter or even invert it.

Not the sort of independence I had intending to be commemorating, but fitting nonetheless.

Also filed in Philly, day in the life, elise, martha, ross | | Comments (2)

Tuesday, June 24, 2003

I couldn’t help but wonder: had she just bought it? She seemed unaccustomed to how to wield it, where to leave it — one of those extra-long black umbrellas with a crooked wooden handle, the sort that belong in brass umbrella stands. With all the rain we’ve been having, maybe she had enough of sodden hairdos and damp white blouses turning ever so translucent. Maybe her bumpershoot busted its spring one time too many. Maybe she enjoyed the way it doubled as a whimsical walking cane.

She could not decide whether or not it belonged on a coat hook, and it certainly wouldn’t fit under the table. Unwieldy, but aesthetically pleasing. One of the most elemental choices in life. Wound up hooked over the back of her chair, slightly swinging, pendulum-like as the waiters breezed by in their smart black slacks. Swinging, and I was half-hypnotized, tapping my fingers to the music and watching it, a third as tall as me, swinging.

Inevitable, when its swing swung too broad and found its hook sliding down off of the chair. As if in bullet time, i could almost hear the inaudible wood on wood scraping, scraping as it found its way slowly from the chair to the floor, now lying directly across the smart black waiters’ path.

Only five feet away, not so far; i could have easily leaned out of my chair to right it again. It wasn’t my place, though, to change how it had found its way to the floor, or what would happen next.

Everything is a domino, i thought, as the waiter tripped over the elegant black umbrella, then righting himself with a cross look on his face. He picked the fallen accessory up from the floor and offered it back to his apologetic patron, who was still slightly puzzled as to where to place her prized new accessory.

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Wednesday, June 11, 2003

Cradling my head in my hands at my desk, I inch my fingertips around to the temples, massaging. I sometimes wonder what would happen if i could open up my head, pressing my fingers tightly on either side and pushing up ever so slightly, swinging it up and back, tipping it back to rest on the hinges that would lie buried beneath my thick hair. Instead of a mess of flesh and blood I imagine inside a tangle of color and light, and of thoughts, packed in tightly and giving off sparks of electricity as they rub excitedly against each other. They would have no gravity of their own, their weight inferred by my body. Exposed to the outside air would they be like balloons, floating up in a parade of escaping color? Would I just helplessly grasp at their strings, not even knowing what I was trying to hold on to, but acutely aware that my insides were on display — not just one fleeting thought that would have never escaped through my lips, but the whole of all of my thoughts. All those parts that I would rather keep hidden or leave forgotten, just ascending up, up, up and away, leaving me empty and inexorably heavier without them because our gravity is reciprocal, lending them my weight in exchange for their ability to lift my head nearer to the clouds.

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Saturday, May 31, 2003

No matter how badass you look with you new buzzed hair cut, scruffy visage, black wifebeater, and “don’t fuck with me” carriage, an entire exercise in acting can be ruined when you remind the dry cleaner not to forget your black shirt because it’s “part of today’s outfit.”

Up until that point i was doing really good character work, though.

But, really what do pissed off looking potential West Philly gang members usually say when the dry cleaner tries to steal their favorite shirt?

Also filed in identity, thoughts | | Comments (0)

Thursday, May 29, 2003

The Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts show was absolutely wonderful. “Are these people,” I reverently asked Melon, “really our age? ”

Maybe I could have believed it after looking at the odd-shaped photorealistic paintings of clouds, or the conference of nearly a dozen porcelain toilets in the middle of the room, or what looked like an drawing Shel Silverstein would have done while taking acid named something to the effect of “A Beautiful Woman Shaves Her Hairy Gums.”

What stunned me were the pieces of art that looked timeless, looked beyond my ability to conceive of. A canvas, as big as my bed, depicting an armored female set against a descending purple twilight. A classical sculpture, in wood and maybe bronze, of a man wearing a boar’s skull. Painting, sculpture, photography, mixed media, all from people who are a part of my generation. Did the student who painted the female warrior watch the same He-Man cartoons as I did? Or, have I lived in a world apart all of these years, separate from the dimension where these artists exist?

In the gift shop I became enamored with a sketching set, suited for the artist who is constantly sketching in the margins of her notebooks. It combined a simple book illustrating how lines form to create simple things like cats, people, and chairs with a neat black sketch book, three pre-sharpened pencils, three sticks of charcoal, and a black crayon of wax (I forget what those are called).

I was determined to buy it for someone – almost everyone I spend my spare time with is an artist of some degree. Any oft hem would appreciate it. But, as I held it in my hands longer, offering it to Erika and Mellon to examine, I realized that all of the people who I wanted to give it to had made it past the margins-of-a-notebook stage of art. I had seen their art, in their rooms, hanging from magnets on my refrigerator, and even decorating their furniture.

No, the set was not for them. It was for me.

So far I have drawn a paper bag, Erika springing from the ground like a tree, a page full of felines and rodents, and a sketch of a Waterson painting. All of the images are imitative, even Ent-Erika, all trying to achieve an image that I have accessed once before. Every time I turn my glance inward I am rewarded only with blank white space, which is mirrored by the empty page in front of me.

Do the artists have a verdant jungle of imagery inside of them, pressing against the backs of their eyes and the insides of their fingertips begging to be rendered into real time and space? Or, is it that they see the same world as I do, yet are inspired to capture the fleeting and intangible beauty of it so that it can always be seen?

I suppose you could ask me the same question about my songs, and my answer would be that it’s all of the above – sometimes they spring from within and sometimes I observe them outside of myself. Sometimes, though, they really do spring fully formed from the proverbial thin air, begging to be formed into something more.

I bought myself a sketch book so that I can learn where to see.

Also filed in erika, stories | | Comments (1)

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

Recently I’ve had a couple of people tell me that you start to feel old when one of your exes gets married. Of course, I really only have the one ex, and we all more or less lovingly refer to her as the Queen of Darkness, so that particular trauma has already passed for me. I didn’t feel old, though – I think she had been betrothed to the dark side even before she started seeing me.

I guess the thing that makes you feel old when a former significant other ties the knot is that you could have, theoretically, stayed with that person, forcing them to wind up knotting with you rather than some other person. Instead, not only have they successfully replaced you (with their spouse), they are several spins ahead of you in the game of Life.

Despite not having an ex for this to happen to, this weekend someone told me something that still managed to make me feel old in that same way – only a little bit different. Because, you see, I found out that a girl who I had never even kissed got married.

Of course, if I was counting the social evolution of every girl I ever had a crush on but never kissed against my own I would have to have some sort of leader board hung in my room to keep track of it all. In fact, this girl is a little bit different because I could have kissed her. I really almost did – as I remember it, we were all lined up for the moment, lips aimed and everything. We didn’t kiss, though. I didn’t kiss her because she was seeing a very nice boy who she seemed to like a lot, and I didn’t want to make myself a chink in their relationship’s armor.

I didn’t kiss her, even though I wanted to, and wound up thinking about it for the rest of the week, hovering by my computer in case she sent me a message of any kind. I’ve talked to her since, hugged and laughed with her, slept on her couch, and rode in her car.

I haven’t heard from her lately, though; we haven’t spoken in months. But, this weekend at our (yet-to-be-blogged-about) cast party, a friend of hers who was in town stopped by to say hello, and she off-handedly informed me that this girl, who I never even kissed, got married. Married to the boy that kept me from kissing her.

It’s not quite the same feeling of being old. Instead, as her friend’s words reached my ears, they manifested as a strange quiver in my stomach. Something about fate? Or karma? Would that kiss have made a difference? Would she have really kissed me if I had leaned in? Would I have been a bad person for doing it? Could it have ever even happened In the first place? Would I be who I am today if it had?

I really ought to save the tough questions until after lunch, huh?

Also filed in adulthood, flirt, q.o.d., stories | | Comments (0)

Tuesday, May 20, 2003

Dreams amalgamate my life and the inside of my head, suspending my disbelief by showing me what I want to happen. Sky has been a part of a lot of my dreams as of late; the Philadelphia skyline mapped in perfect three-dimensional detail.

Last night I found myself staring out from my IBC cubical view — I saw a strange dark swirling cloud dominating the distant skyline. Something struck me about that cloud — drew me to it, so out of place against the otherwise blue horizon. And, suddenly, the reinforced windows surrounding my floor were gone and I reached out my hand to meet fresh air, thirty-five floors about the ground.

Stepping up onto my desk, and then onto the window sill, I leapt out into the open expanse, the wind catching my body and propelling it upwards, ever upwards. I flew up to meet the blackness, only to find that like a passing plane it was ever higher than I thought. Half pushing against the increasingly distant ground, half pulling myself up towards its swirling vortex, I soon was close enough to see into its oily form.

Face to face with it, I found that it was not a dark cloud, but a nightmare, a nothing, a black bull hidden inside a swirling lightening storm. And I flew into its heart, striking out wildly against the air all around me, only to be driven down towards the earth by its horrible breath. Plummeting endlessly, like Gandalf and the Balrog. Unable to orient myself towards the great beast and push back against its power, slamming into the ground and whipped by sharp streams of rain, it combined unbearable pressure and swirling wind to tear the breath right out of me.

I remember it tumbling walls down around me, feeling the snap of ribs giving way against the onslaught and debris, and my last gasp for air as people shouted in the background, alarmed that I might be defeated outright. And i was.

Just because I am a superhero in my dreams does not mean I always win.

Also filed in dreamt | | Comments (1)

Sunday, May 18, 2003

I feel as though there’s something i have to tell you — i really owe it to you. It won’t be easy, but i have to. But, first you should know that when i got back home last night from Lyndzapalooza i felt as if i had bruised everything that i had: fingers, muscles, voice, brain, and heart. I was, as i put it so eloquently to Elise, “a piece of hurt.” Not that it’s any excuse for what i’m about to tell you, but i just feel as though you should have an idea of the state i’m in.

I cried at the end of Armageddon. There, i’ve said it. I cried, not only for the characters on screen, but for myself — for having so knowingly bought in to a written-by-committee tearjerker that barely aspires to B-movie status because of one thing: Bruce. Bruce Willis. The man doesn’t always make the best movies out there to be made, and he isn’t always the best actor that could be found, but you just don’t kill him. Do you understand? Don’t kill Bruce. Because, in killing him, you force him to let loose, to lose control, to unlease all of the pathos and weariness that he has built up during the shooting of countless Die Hard movies as well as the physical emotiveness he reserved while dubbing his voice into the Look Who’s Talking series. And when you let me know that for the entire population of the Earth, including those of us spending our waning hours watching this bland by-the-numbers Bay/Bruckheimer creation, the only thing that stands in the way of our imminent deaths is the noble self-sacrifice of Bruce Willis then by god maybe the end is nearer than we think, because i will be blown into a thousand pieces by errant space debris before i’ll watch Bruce sacrifice himself again to save a pansy talentless hack like Ben Affleck who draw the straw of death fair and fucking square! Do you hear me?!?! Straw of death.

Like i said, i’m not especially emotionally stable right now. Apologies. Hopefully you don’t think any less of me for it.

Also filed in elise, essays, flicks, lyndzapalooza | | Comments (0)

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Monday, April 21, 2003

It’s very corporate. I remember the qualifications that i set when i started college: nothing where i primarily spend time with computers, and nothing too corporate. I cannot help but wonder: did i compromise, or just change my mind?

I am usually the first in the building from my department, save for the other intern. At eight fifteen i dutifully check all of my email accounts and scan CNN and Metafilter for news as i drink my Paradise Lust, though i tend to stretch my muffin (alternately blueberry and chocolate) until quarter of nine. Really, though, my working day starts the previous working evening, because i have been staying late. Not obscenely, workaholic late. No. Just late enough to finish whatever i have in front of me. It is the business world’s version of the Clean Plate Club. Which means that the next morning at nine, after i have resolved my urgent emails and made myself some tea, i have to start the process all over again. From a clean plate.

The hours between are immaterial, marked by endlessly attentive hard work punctuated by trips to the water cooler, bathroom, director’s office, and outside world. To the latter there is but one venture, which i prefer to enjoy in solitude (though i am not rude enough to turn down anyone’s invitation). My co-workers are adamant about this: you really ought to escape while you can. For lunch, that is. I found their warning ominous at first, but i understand it now. Air is out there; air that we can only look at through our reinforced unopenable windows. Yet, once i am outside i always want to return — how is it that i can feel so lost and alone in the middle of my city during my hour of lunch?

Thus, every day i return with a half an hour to spare, always with some iteration of chicken caesar salad. One day it was in a wrap, the next on a sandwich, the third with a side of salmon sushi. Somehow the predictability cheers me in how it thwarts the tiny “what did you have today” conversations that crop up around three-thirty when everyone is sated and ready to leave. I am usually ready to leave at ten thirty, but i change my mind by lunch, opting instead to stay late… to power through… to clean my plate.

In my first paycheck i cleared eighty two cents on every dollar, which is one and a half cents better than i did in Admissions. I do not get upset; i do not tithe on the behalf of god, and so i tithe to capitalism instead. Even after that, i am left with an unreal amount of money. Did i earn that? For my work? Really? I boggle myself for a second, too excited by the spending possibilities of my modestly large check, and marvelling that i could be worth over fifty thousand dollars a year with a bachelor’s degree.

I have yet to deposit it. There are so many things to buy, to see, to hear, that i am afraid to turn their numerals and decimals into cents and dollars that i can spend. At the top of my list are a four-track, a laptop, a guitar, and trips to the movies. I imagine a different list superimposed on top of my own: a mortgage, a washing machine, car insurance, and trips to the movies. People making less than i am have that list rather than my own, yet cannot afford to be paralyzed by indecision between buying an actual four-track or simulating it with mixing software.

Indecision is a priceless luxury that earning potential can often afford, and i am indecisive by my very nature. So, did i compromise, or just change my mind?

Also filed in corporate | | Comments (0)

Monday, April 7, 2003

No, I don’t know why it is snowing in Philadelphia in April.

Someone actually asked me about it this morning – in disbelief that it was happening, i suppose. Unless they thought that i might somehow know something Philadelphia’s meteorologists don’t. And, well, i do know things that they don’t, but those are all about responsible journalism, and not about explaining the weather.

It wasn’t so much snowing as the wind was blowing about a frigidly icy mist, which i encountered at length on my lunch break. This should not have been the case; i did not have any reason to get so well acquainted with today’s weather. All i wanted was a salad. I thought, Surely there is a salad to be had in close enough proximity to my office building that i will not have to encounter enough weather to be forced to comment upon it when i return to my desk.

Actually, there was (a salad to be had); my coworkers recommended me to the “Oh-So-Good” eatery, which sits directly across a relatively easy-to-traverse intersection outside of my building. In fact, someone had just come back from there, and none of us even bothered to ask her about the weather. Perfect.

Oh-So is one of a new urban trend: it is like a lunchbox that packs everything … salads, sushi, soup, sandwiches, and also some things that do not begin with S. I not only gleaned this from my coworker’s description of it, but also because it proudly proclaims its one-shop-feeds-all nature in a series of simple-to-the-point-of-being-semiotic advertisements along their outer walls — they had vaguely registered in my memory from my walk to work, but i didn’t really connect them to whatever they were meant to advertise.

(Knowing me as well as you do, i’m sure you can sense that i’m about to complain about the advertisements. It is rather obvious that that’s where i am heading… why i even both to set these things up so dramatically is beyond me.)

As i exited the lobby of my building, the first advertisement to enter my field of vision was (yes) semiotic in nature. It was so effective that the pictographic on it screamed one and only one thing at me: PENIS!

Yes, it screamed penis. And, the picture that was shouting was not some virile erect vegetable of a penis, that carrot or cucumber that i might have expected since this was meant to be a sign for food and not for… well, not for genitalia. No. It was a remarkably unerect little penis.

Actually, it more resembled a shrimp…

A-Ha!, i thought, it must be a sign for shrimp!. Then, thinking some more, i thought: Surely their advertising people realize that the shrimp looks like a prepubescent penis that just participated in a Polar Bear Club activity. I mean… it barely even looks like shrimp. Or, at least, it definitely does not immediately register in the “yum, i want to eat that” category of my brain.

I continued with this line of thought as i neared Oh-So and it’s Oh-So-Shrimp. Something about the situation bothered me; it wasn’t as if i was suddenly (and uncharacteristically) having a typical male homophobic moment that lead me to fear or revile the shrimp. No. And, i wasn’t experiencing some sort of intelligence deficit that would suddenly render me offended based on some sort of right-wing moral obligation to the public to protect it from lude imagery. No, not that either.

Ah, yes, i had it. It was simply that i was bothered by the fact their advertising people were either too moronic to see that their primary food-glyph looked like an underdeveloped sex organ or too excited by its implication to make it look a touch more shrimp-like. Despite having isolated this, my problem, i found myself physically incapable of entering the building; every time i approached it i was overwhelmed by a lingering contempt by their idea of trendy advertising.

Long story short (too late), i learned all about today’s weather as i walked the two grueling ice-mist filled blocks to Lindsay’s favorite deli to get a salad there, and then another two blocks back into the wind to get back to my building so i could actually eat.

Despite this enlightening journey of the body and mind, i still have no idea why it was snowing in Philadelphia in April

In other cock-related news (ha! a pun!), i went rooster hunting when i returned from work this evening, after an unbelievable alarm-clock-like round of crowing this morning that ran on regular half hour intervals starting at five. I was unable to locate the foul fowl, despite some leads indicating that what i previously thought to be an errant chicken walking around behind CVS was actually said rooster, a pet of the man who lives on the corner. A thorough stalking of his premises revealed no such terror of a bird. I have resolved that if i am woken up at any point before 7am tomorrow by its crowing that i will go outside, find it, and shove it through its owner’s mail slot.

And still i’ve managed not to talk about my new job. Shocking. Maybe tomorrow i can squeeze it in between a discussion of Georgia O’Keeffe paintings and my discovery of an Oh-So-Sign that is implausibly meant to resemble a peach.

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Tuesday, April 1, 2003

There definitely are not any reasons for me to be awake right now, was the first thought to pop into my head at four-thirty this morning, when i found myself awake two and a half hours shy of my clock’s scheduled alarming. After i fully resigned myself to the reality that, yes, i was no longer within the depths of my dreams, my second thought was: What the fuck is making that godawful noise?

Obviously, the noise was not one that i could immediately recognize — not car alarm, nor overloud stereo, nor cat in heat. Actually, it sounded something like the first and the third intertwined and broadcast over the second, but that piece of information did not leave me any closer to knowing what it was. In case you haven’t already gathered, it was not a pleasant sound.

As i rose to a fuller level of consciousness, i initiated an internal round of twenty-questions to attempt to the identify the noise’s source. Where was it coming from? It was not interior to my room. It was not coming from inside of the rest of the house. It was not coming through the wall that i share with our neighbors. It was definitely from outside. It was coming from out back, maybe from the northern side of my block. It was coming at slightly irregular intervals, but with no discernible variations: squw-aw-aw-ah-ack … … … squw-aw-aw-ah-ack … … squw-aw-aw-ah-ack … et cetera.

What was making the noise? Certainly not a naturally occurring phenomenon. Probably not electronic, given the interval length. Could it be animal? Hmm. Would have to be vocal in nature. Not barking, not yowling, not chirping …

Just shy of my twentieth question, i ventured an internal guess that the sound must be that of a rooster who had found himself running slightly ahead of the sunrise schedule. However, i failed to locate any such creature upon poking my head out of the window, and was hesitant to climb out onto my spring-board-of-death/roof in my post-unconscious state. Lacking any other option short of throwing things out of my window, i closed it and retreated to my bed. Whatever it was, it couldn’t possible go on like that for much longer; i could tune it out.

I could not tune it out, and it would not stop. It was awful and piercing, pausing just long enough to raise my hopes that it might be over and then dashing them with another resounding squw-aw-aw-ah-ack. Soon i found myself grinding one ear into the sheets and capping the other with a pillow, altogether enveloped by my heavy blanket. Still, it came. And came. And so forth.

After a short while i began to entertain the idea that if i was forced to lay awake much longer i might get out of bed, dress in several layers of dark clothing, wrap a towel around my face and neck in a burqa-like fashion, go outside and around to the back of my apartment, scale some fences, and confront my nemesis/rooster. Clearly if i could not shake it from its activity i would be force snap the damn thing’s neck. Sleepless, i convinced myself that i would be able to do it. After all, it wasn’t as if i was a vegetarian because i like animals especially much. And the owner ought not to even have it in the city, let alone give it free vocal reign of the pre-dawn hours. It couldn’t possibly be hard to break a rooster’s neck; the trick would just be to catch it. And so forth.

I have no recollection of the noise ever ending, but after nearly an hour of imagining myself as a member of an elite ninja poultry-extermination squad i finally fell back into sleep. When i awoke (at the expected time) i could detect no trace of the noise and, upon reflection, decided that it could not have possibly been a rooster. A rooster? Just the delirium of being woken from deep R.E.M.-sleep talking. Probably some weird foreign car’s alarm. Anyhow, i had to get dressed and be on the way to my second day of work.

A short time later i was outside — halfway down my block, in fact — when i spotted an vaguely familiar neighbor leaving her house. I resolved not to involve her in my ruminations, but as she joined me on the sidewalk my curiosity got the best of me. I blurted: “Can i ask you something very peculiar?” She regarded me skeptically, but apparently decided from the look of my shirt and tie that i could no no worse harm than try to bum a cigarette. She made no move to break stride or reply, so i continued: “Did you hear anything odd last night… around four thirty in the morning?”

Another skeptical look. Today is, i realized, April Fools. She let my question hang for a moment and then wryly (though not icily) replied, “Like what?”

My mouth opened (certainly not a rooster, that’s for sure) and closed (nevermind) and opened again and, seemingly of its own volition, said “Perhaps a, erm, a rooster,” and, emboldened by her lack of immediate ridicule, then amended, “or some other animal that regularly greets the dawn of a new day with a terribly piercing squw-aw-aw-ah-ack sound.” (The sound came out perfectly … as if i had spent all night rehearsing it rather than being tortured by it. I hadn’t spent the whole night rehearsing it, had i? No, i had heard it … heard the rooster/ /foreign-car-alarm /unidentified-squw-aw-aw-ah-acking-object. Right… right?)

Her gaze suddenly renounced its skepticism, leaving a warmly-smiling face in its place. (Her rooster, perhaps?) Then: “Probably just one of the neighbors who’s involved in cock-fighting.” She sounded unconcerned; nonchalant, even. “I’m Dawn, by the way.”

Oh. Sure. One of those. “Oh. Sure. One of those.” I sounded considerably less unconcerned than she did; decidedly chalant, if you will. I quickly attempted to save face in the light of my seemingly puzzled reception of her very succinct answer by adding, “Right… right? (very smooth… for a jackass.) I’m Peter.”

After my incredibly comeback, Dawn and I carried on a sparkling conversation all the way to our bus stop, rooster-free save for her comment that “I’ll hear something more peculiar than that from one of my clients today, that’s for sure.” Which, i suppose, makes perfect sense if you are in the know about the neighborhood cock-fighting ring — which Dawn is. And, if you counsel weird people for a living, which Dawn does.

In comparison, my second day of work seemed entirely normal. Which definitely wasn’t the case…

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Tuesday, February 25, 2003

I never know what’s going on in my apartment.

There are four of us, spending all of our time alternatingly at work, in class, with our significant others, or on stage. The odds that more than two of us will ever be here at the same time are dwarfed by the odds that the apartment will be empty when one of us arrives.

The way i figure it, you and your college roommates would have to be absolute dweebs for this not to be the case. “Dweebs,” for sure, because the four of us are definitely geeks, so i had to find a word that had more of a “shut-in” connotation.

It’s not hard to spend nearly three quarters of your typical waking hours outside of your collegiate abode; it’s not like we do it intentionally. In fact, occasionally going days at a time without re-entering it really isn’t a challenge — especially when you’re dating someone with their own apartment.

What starts to occur is that, with so many lengthy departures, your home can hold something unusual for you upon your return. Different. It can be full of surprises. And, though these surprises might prove alarming at first, as the length of your residence increases the unusual circumstances that you find yourself entering into become less and less alarming.

Rearranged or missing furniture should not phase you, nor should strangers reclining on said furniture (even if they are the only people presently in your house). The appearance or disappearance of drastically large amounts of any kitchen items, including actual food or liquor, should be duly noted but not unduly fretted over. Finding a sign on your front door that proclaims “Ring hard and often; cover $5″ should only bother you if you do not have a doorbell. You should expect to find large new appliances, game / home-theatre systems, or piles of laundry more often than not. You should strive to exhibit no surprise upon the emergence unexpected or unwelcome people from your roommates’ bedrooms. If any of your personal effects seem to be lost or missing, even from your own room or bathroom area, you should allow ample time for them to be returned or replaced before entering a period of mourning.

Then there are the notes. Even in this technologically advanced age, notes are the most effective form of roommate to roommate conversation. Why? You can blow off an email, but there is only so long that you can profess to ignore something that is affixed to your doorknob, disco ball, toilet-lid, television screen, Brita pitcher, or bedroom door. Additionally, you should learn to anticipate what will at first seem like non-sequitir content in said notes, which will eventually bloom to make a terrifying amount of sense once you put the correct context in place, as in the only vaguely exaggerated examples that follow:

Please extinguish your own toaster fires.

Do not poke at the holes in the bathroom ceiling.

For your own safety do not open the closet door until Animal Control arrives.

You have 24 hours to return all dinnerware to the kitchen before a fine goes into effect.

and, a personal favorite excerpted from Elise’s house:

Dear tenants … I am leaving the country to serve in the Isreali army, hopefully to return in March … These are the best years of your life; make sure to have fun every day … Signed: Your Landlord.

College… it’s an adventure.

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Sunday, February 2, 2003

The week that i moved into my first apartment was also the only week i’ve ever owned a cell phone. Actually, it was on loan from Drexel as part of my employment as a peer leader. Only two and a half years later and all that i can remember is working long days in our tiny cloistered room in The Armory, after which i would take a short but exhilarating walk back to my new home. Short to the tune of seven blocks, but exhilarating because it carried me off of the Drexel campus map and onto poorly lit residential streets that were known to host such threats as maliciously drunk frat-boys and the very occasional mugger.

In the beginning i would get so tense walking home from work that i would nervously finger the nine key on my company phone, as i had it set to speed dial the police. At the time i was new to the feeling of my own keys in my hand, and could not help but finger them constantly while my other hand readied for action, especially when i turned up the always-dark thirty-sixth street from Powelton. And, though I always tell prospective students that i’ve never been harassed or mugged for a reason i have the distinct feeling that neither my shiny new keys and tightly-clutched phone were that reason.

Walking down Walnut street tonight with Elise’s cell phone in my hand recalled the experience for just a moment, blogged-about but forgotten in the interim. Of course, now i am thrust into what actually qualifies as West Philadelphia rather than blocks of expensive double homes, and i am now typically as oblivious to any potential dangers the streets hold in store for me as i was trigger-happy on the nine button back in the day.

Oddly, i felt strangely alone out on the street — somehow totally out of place, as if i was being blue-screened onto a city block from the safety of a comfortably heated studio. As if a digital jaws or T-rex could snap me up as i rounded a corner, represented by your common Philly street thug. Or, you know, an actual screen-monster approximately as threatening.

Tonight was literally the first time i had a cell phone in my personal possession for more than a minute or two since those tense walks home in 2000; Elise had given me hers so i could call her to consult on Ben & Jerry’s flavors, but as the neon sign of the convenience store disappeared behind the slope of Walnut street i found the phone at my ear. Elise just a speed dial button away; I wouldn’t call her just because i was afraid, though. No, of course not.

What i would do, though, is have an embarrassingly loud one-sided conversation about themes of materialism and submissiveness in Moulin Rouge as they relate to modern feminism. Not exactly guaranteed to scare away muggers, but i suppose i was hoping to portray that any startled girly screams in the middle of such a heated debate would be construed as distress calls rather than me conceding that Nicole’s tuberculosis had nothing to do with damning her character as soon as she became more than a high class hussy.

But, really, i hated that movie.

When i finally reached my own corner the phone was still pressed to my ear with Elise only a hot key away, and i felt confident enough to finally relax my death grip on her tiny Motorola. However, it was then that i saw it.

A cat — my first assumption; fair, i think. It wasn’t as big as Elise’s dreadnought-sized house felines, but not unreasonable for a feisty-but-underfed outdoor tom. Upon a second glance i saw that the tail wasn’t right… not high and wagging like a cat’s. Not even right for being a bit damp and put out. In fact, more like outrightly straight, and tapered near the end. Not especially fluffy.

As i got closer the silhouette of its face began to resolve so that i could make out out not an adorable button of a kitty nose, but a snout. Yes, definitely a snout. At this point i upgraded my estimate from stray to opossum, although i had no guesses as to what an opossum would be doing wandering around on Walnut street at this time of year. Or any time of year.

At this juncture i idly pressed the call button on the cell so as to share my speculation with Elise. I had only gotten halfway into what i’m sure was a very clever introductory sentence about the migratory patterns of opossum when my quarry turned to face me and i discovered that it was not a cat, opossum, or even a deformed pan-handler. No, none of the above, not by any stretch of my overstimulated and sleep-deprived imagination.

Indeed, it was a rat. A rat that had grown so large that even seeing it full on i was tempted to believe it was a mutated house cat. Let me put that into perspective for you: big enough that it cannot be obscured by a single car tire; too menacing to beat to death with a flip-flop; large enough that it immediately evoked a fire-swamp joke after i was done screaming like a little girl at the top of my lungs at one thirty in the morning in the middle of a deserted West Philadelphia street.

I’m not sure if that scared away the muggers or attracted them.

The ROUS continued to stare me down while Elise casually dismissed my peril — i took her hanging up on me as an implicit refusal to rush down the stairs to arm me with a burning torch, large steak knife, or can of disinfectant lysol.

There we stood: girly boy desperately clutching a cell phone and two pints of Ben & Jerry’s and rodent … rodent and girly boy desperately clutching a cell phone and two pints of Ben & Jerry’s and rodent. After a bone-chilling minute where i thought i would be forced to lob a pint of Coffee Heath Bar Crunch at the thing’s head, it nobly retreated to the barely sufficient cover of an Accord tire so that i could breathless dart past it. My keys now added to the list of precious cargo clutched tightly to my chest, i was more urgently tense during those fleeting moments of escape than i ever was three years ago on the front stoop of my apartment building.

Moral: Cell phones cannot protect you from everything. At least, not unless you have the speed dial for Animal Control directly between the one for your unsympathetic girlfriend and 911.

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Wednesday, January 22, 2003

Kitschy retro diners are supposed to make you feel as though you have stepped away from the outer world and into the protective womb of the fifties. All the counters are clean, all the waitresses wear white, and all the food is decidedly nationalistic — with only slight nods to South of the Border Sauce to even remind you of the global complexities that await outside after you pay the balance of your check.

Today, sitting alone at an empty counter, i found myself wondering how strict a typical retro diner is with its staff about anachronisms. To my recollection i have never been served onion rings in such a fine establishment by anyone wearing a digital watch, but not all potentially meal-spoiling anachronisms are so conveniently dated. What about hair scrunchies?, i mused. And, at that point at a loss for some other easily identifiable item, or breast augmentation? Before i could get too involved in that particular arm of speculation my waitress arrived with a menu and, to my unending delight, bobby pins holding her hair back.

As she handed me my menu i thought that i am never quite sure what to think of my physical appearance, which i described just last night as “androgynously timeless.” Still, today i am surely at my best: just enough stubble to suggest i might not be in high school, bangs carefully crafted with a sticky mess of pomade, wool scarf wrapped around my neck. I never expect anyone to notice me, though; i am typically a cypher on a crowded street, slipping through a crowd while remaining completely unremarked on.

My waitress commenced flirting with me shortly after i informed her that i was trying to decide if i was hungry enough to have something beyond my initial order of rings. Her hair was auburn and pulled back by the aforementioned bobbies, leaving only a few escaped crinkles to frame a face set with remarkably blue eyes. Actually, the flirting coincided exactly with my first free refill of lemonade, which by rights should have cost me a dollar sixty-nine.

The subtle irony of her name being Laurel did not escape me.

I, of course, am oblivious to flirting even when aware of it, if that makes any sense at all. Eventually Laurel coaxed an order out of me, and by the time she disappeared to put in a request for Smokehouse Turkey Burger i had finally caught on. Back she came, burger in hand. She smiled. As i ate i listened to her talk to a co-worker about how she needed off on Friday because her roommate was in a show, and she had promised months ago to attend but had then totally forgotten. She intermittently peeked over her shoulder at the fryer, idly drumming her fingers on the counter if she felt as if it was taking too long.

I decided the cut of her khakis could not have existed before the seventies, though i have no ideas about the origin of the style of underwear which non-too-quietly broadcasted itself through said pants. She came by to give me my fourth free lemonade refill and asked me if everything was okay, and i quickly gulped down my food to reply. “Yes. You could bring a check,” which came off as very charming, i’m sure.

As i came within three bites of finishing my burger i wistfully glanced out the window at the bustle of South Street, trying to imagine the stores that would have dotted its sidewalks fifty years ago. I can already tell that i will be one of those old people that talks about how different things were when i was young because i do it already and, i suppose in connection to that, i am fascinated by the idea of Philadelphia as it was decades ago. The buildings, the cars, the fashion, the people.

As much as i might like to pretend, we had no place there: me with my headphones draped around my neck and her with those bothersome khaki pants. Unable to find a way around my unsuspended disbelief and into the background of a scene from Dobie Gillis, i decided to leave. Laurel deserved twenty percent, if not for the pleasant flirting then for the seven dollars of free lemonade, and i found that my wallet contained exactly one hundred and twenty percent of the bill — down to the last cent. I placed it on the counter, neatly folded on top of a clean napkin, and left without a word.