Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

walking

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I’m having trouble deciding what i feel about anything except for sitting holed up in my room protected by womb of thick walls and loud music. Yesterday on my way home from class i walked a block out my way – out of boredom, i guess. I had never been on it on foot before, just in a car passing by. The feeling was indescribable, as if i had stepped off of my front porch and onto the set of a television show (because i had never seen that block before except for through the glass of a window/screen).

I think that sometimes Elise feels bad that i don’t write so many songs anymore, as if it’s her fault. It guess it is a little bit, because i am happy and not creating stupid scenarios in my head to connect me to every person that i pass by on the street out of utter desperation to be a part of someone else’s day. It’s confusing to look at the entries in my little grey book from a year ago, while Elise was still new and confusing enough to evoke my typical lyrical ramblings. At a point not too far after that there is a disconnect, and suddenly i am not writing out of my gut anymore, from where my songs used to spring covered in bile and blood. Every time Elise gets used to me not having anything new to sing at all i surprise her, the other night with four new songs that she had never even heard a hint of before. They make me uneasy — i have trouble feeling them and so they are hard to sing.

I have thirty four weeks of college left after i complete my last co-operative learning experience this summer. I said a funny thing last night to Erika about that. I said that i wasn’t returning my mother’s phone calls because she would have to get used to not hearing from me and being worried once i left Philadelphia. I talk a lot about what i may or may not do after i graduate, everything from going abroad to going to grad school, and usually it has an air of fantasy and speculation about it. Last night, though, i said it without thinking. It felt like singing one of my old songs, half diaphragmatic support and half a punch in the gut. I don’t know where i’m going to go, or what i’m going to do, but apparently it’s not going to be here.


Or so i say. But, for as many streets there are in this city that can make me feel alien there are other cities on this planet that i’ll never see. I really ought to start working on that.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/03/90595788/

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Lately i have been screaming my voice thin, pummeling it as i scream for the high notes over and over again. This weekend it was Bb. If i could do that every day i would be a tenor.


There is still snow on the ground from last week’s snow day, though today’s temperatures in the 40’s felt like a summer vacation as it turned back streets filled with ice into soggy puddles to dance around. I remember when i first walked back from campus after the snow, unbroken white covering the field on thirty fourth street. A group of students were just convening a game of full-tackle snow football, and i almost asked them if could join in before i realized that i was wearing clompy boots and sexy jeans and was in no shape to be a pro full-tackle snow football player.


I get so convinced in moments, living out the highlight reel of my life as it follows a split second possibility. Rockstar. Run-away to Australia. Professor. Hit by a bus, Working in the office for the rest of my life. Pro-sno-baller.

Undecided. I wound up going out for some salad and bubble tea.

Typical.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/12/90046945/

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I have to walk down Walnut between forty-fourth and fortieth every day; there’s really no way around it. Anywhere that i need to go is on the other side of fortieth street – school, work, transportation, and people. The trip down those four blocks is inevitable, and it greets me on any day that i dare to venture off of forty-fourth street.

The sidewalk between forty-second and forty-third is all gray slate on one side, great rectangular slabs of it all puzzled out to make a proper sidewalk. At its edges it gives way to concrete curbs on one side and front steps on the other — the concrete looking brutish against the calmly worn surface of the slabs. There are several pieces of the slate near the middle of the block that have buckled and cracked … from the wear of the years, i supposed.

The other day i crossed forty-second street on the south side of Walnut to find myself trailing a slowly moving truck. It was a pickup, large enough to do proper battle with an SUV, red dusted with grime that had survived the last day’s rain. I found myself trailing it because it was rolling down the slate sidewalk ever so slowly, and i could almost hear the rain gray slabs groaning in protest. I would, too.

The truck came to a stop halfway down the block, and as the oblivious men in coveralls stepped down from the cab my eyes fell upon the massive tires of their gleaming metal beast, and how all of the cracked panels that usually caught my eye were positioned in close proximity to them. The passengers of the vehicle seemed familiar with the weathered house they approached, greeting the man on its steps. Apparently, it wasn’t unusual for them to park there.

I was about to rail against their disrespect of what probably constitutes a historic fixture on their block just because they were too lazy to park farther away and then carry what they needed, but then i remembered that we had driven the massive yellow U-Haul truck right up to the sad front lawn of Ross’s house in August and how we nearly knocked the traffic light down while backing out due to my imperfect navigational skills.

No respect, i thought, and kept on walking.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/04/75130672/

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I was walking down Chestnut street yesterday while playing guitar, which was somewhat unusual — seeing as it was cold enough that i couldn’t feel quite where my fingers were on the fret-board and because Chestnut is a rather urban pedestrian thoroughfare. I couldn’t quite tell you why it seemed like such a good idea at the time, but somehow i just knew it needed to be done. So, off i went down the street, retuning and changing picks inbetween songs without breaking my stride. Well, at least, not until i broke a string, which waylaid me dead in the middle of a block with my schoolbag and guitar case scattered around me as i went about changing my D string with a grim sense of determination.

Each person that passed by my motley pile of possessions and rapidly uncoiling packet of fresh strings felt like a missed opportunity, and i miswound the string twice in my hurry to get up and running. When i finally got back to my feet to begin tuning i found a man almost on top of me – mid-thirties, denim jacket, not much taller than me. He asked me what sort of guitar i had and i immediately switching into the “shoot-the-shit” mode you need to assume while speaking to randomly chatty guitarists; they don’t usually tend to be the most informed persons in the world, which seems to fuel their need to randomly ask you what sort of guitar you’re playing when the company insignia is obviously displayed in gold lettering on the headstock. But, anyhow, against my normal codes of operation, i engaged him in conversation as i continued tuning up.

By some flaw of fate and luck, he was the opportunity i wasn’t meant to miss. As our conversation continued, it turned out that he wasn’t just shooting the shit — in fact, he was a local singer-songwriter who plays open mics in the area and even has a Saturday show lined up at the Tin Angel! He gave me his email address and a flier for his show, and told me to get in touch with him about playing an open mic sometime.


Herein lies the dilemma… i’ve got the email all written, its window hidden behind this one while i type. I took care in arranging it with the right balance of nonchalance and enthusiasm, ellipses and exclamation points. The problem that has arisen is simply this: what sort of music do i compare myself to? Our conversation already established his ignorance of Ani DiFranco (and probably, by extension, Peter Mulvey) as well as our collective distaste for Dave Matthews and Creed along with their hapless legion of fans. So, i’m stuck trying to condense my four-odd years of songwriting and over ten dozen songs into a witty little mad-lib of a sentence, like “Like a mixture of ___ _____ and ______with the pop sensibility of ______ ___ and the instincts of a pre-fame ______.” Or, something like that…


Any thoughts? I really need some help on this one.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/03/75044182/

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The first time it goes off is around six in the morning, for no discernible reason. I mean, it obviously goes off because i set it to go off then, but Lindsay is constantly asking me why i set my alarm to ring four hours ahead of time. No reason other than it’s like a two-minute warning for having to wake up and deal with another day.

I was happy to have the warning this morning, since the day seemed especially dreary. I didn’t even need to look out of my tiny back window to know; i could feel the chill sliding in through the cracks and twisting up to raise goose-bumps on my legs. Deciding to sleep through my first two classes was not the most wrenching decision i’ve ever had to make.


The other thing Lindsay can’t seem to understand is why my alarm rings over and over again. I tell her it’s a warning… life ahead in four hours… three hours… until finally it’s just “Time to wake up. Fucking Blastoff.” Apparently, one ring is enough to convey the message to her. Today the blastoff ring was #6, and the reason i got me out of bed was because the sun had decided to accompany it. I was up and navigating the mess of my floor to turn down the alarm before Courtney could start screaming, and i could feel the diffuse runny-egg yellow of a damp sun on my back. The day had made an ugly duckling transformation for me, and i felt as though i was headed for something not entirely dissimilar.


It’s strange to go from kneading a palmful of shampoo past damp curls down to the suffocated scalp beneath to sliding a dime sized drop down the middle of centimeter long strands on the top of my head. It’s the shortest my hair has ever been. Stepping out past my fish-curtain i caught my nude reflection in the mirror, and something seemed different other than my hair. No new pimples, no unexpected muscles. It was something about how the slope of my shoulders changes, the line of my neck becomes smoother. And, something else as well — as if my haircut was emblematic of some greater change that was working its way out from my heart and up through the skin.

I wasn’t sure of what the change might be, but i hoped it would go well with my grey turtleneck and sexy jeans.

It wasn’t until i had gotten halfway to my destination of skipping class that i started feeling the way my reflection looked. Nothing tangible, but my change in carriage had seeped down from my neck and shoulders and out from my gut to pervade my whole being. By the time i got down to the Green Room i definitely felt different, although to everyone in the room it read as something closer to narcissistic conceit. Really, could i help wanting to have attention paid to me? I had Changed and they wanted to talk about midterms. Ridiculous.


Amazing what a $10 haircut, losing three pounds, and being in my scientifically determined sexual prime can do for morale. Whatever. I try not to dissect the positive moments of life too much. I just felt … fuckable. And, not just hot or easy or anything like that, but like someone covetable. Someone other people have strong opinions on. And, well, fuckable sounded like a good adjective at the time, but now that i’m looking at it in writing i can see where that narcissistic angle came in.


So, maybe it wasn’t so different from most other days, really, but usually i’m more of a pity fuck, you know?

Nevermind.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/01/9028072/