Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Archives for March 2002

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Sorry, i’ve been having a life.

My view has varied throughout my life, as i never can see the same thing out of my bedroom windows from place to place. As a child it was just the desolation of SouthWest Philadelphia with a hint of the city skyline buried off in the distance, and then it was a calm schoolyard with its swings and endless ranks of row-homes beyond. It was a shock to go from such typical views to Freshmen year, where i could see a postcard version of our entire city skyline from the window above my bed.


Kenny and i had an ongoing joke that year about how i would invite girls up to the room and ask them if they wanted to “see the view.” Of course, they’d have to climb right onto my bed to see what i meant, which played right into my plan of seduction via the illumination of the city lights.

No one ever took me up on the offer of the view, but it might have been because i never really offered it seriously; always packaging it with the joke that it was, in fact, my surefire means of seduction — which tends to diffuse the seductive power of the plan.


Right now it is raining. My neighbor has his blinds closed, so all there is to see is the oblong diamond overlay of his mottled brown siding, and the strange rust-orange of the next house with cabinets backed up against its windows so that all i can see is what’s on top of them. Stricly speaking, it’s the most restricted view i’ve ever had … even last year’s view of rowhomes sometimes came through with something a little more noteworthy. So, my window isn’t much to be proud of . . . except, between here and those houses on the other side, there is a tiny backyard world that is separate from the people in the houses that surround it. Staring out into it is like watching the interior of a snow-globe, only it is the outside and we are the in, and we are staring out at it through the protection of my tiny back window.

Right now it is raining, and the patter-splash-patter of it on the world below my window is easy to pick out from the street sounds and the sighing of my heater. On Monday all that was out there was sun, and in the afternoon it had reached its zenith and was headed home to sleep as its light was projected down through that tiny window.

My bed was magnified; all warmth and comfort. And, i’m thinking… it might not be the most impressive view that i’ve ever had, but it could be my favourite.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/03/75009809/

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Driving can seem exotic to me sometimes, especially out on highways that i don’t frequent. Cars aren’t something that are especially typical of my Philadelphia routine, other than various friends and acquaintances saving my ass from the winter chill by driving me back from the theatre at night. I got us to my house okay, but after that i was blind as to where we were or how we got there … just desperately trying to align myself via the river and signs pointing North to New York.

My romantic life being what it is, my mother has never had a girlfriend of mine to meet, and so we stopped by my house on Reed street on our way to New Jersey to see if she was around. She was, albeit barely in her underwear when i first opened the door unannounced, but mom was not about the give up the chance to meet an in-the-flesh significant other of mine who drives her own car and is bringing me home with her for the day.

I played chameleon as best i could in blue jeans and grey shirt against the hood of her car as my mom engaged us in idle chatter, trying to understand how she must come off the first time you meet her without my nervously cracking jokes to get in the way. My mother and i live on our torment of each other, mocking back and forth as we breathlessly converse, and to other people we seem too entangled in this strange familial subculture to be penetrated or understood. Idle chatter it was, about the rain that seemed to be on the way and where we were going. We finally ran out of steam (left without too many of our typical sarcastic remarks; on our best behaviour), and my mother gave me a kiss and a hug and, before i could turn around to walk back to the passenger side of the car, my mother gave her a kiss and a hug too. Hope to see you again, or something. That’s what she said.

Back in the car i was just madly grinning and fiddling with my seatbelt until my mother was safely across the street and back into our row home before i turned around and said “Well, that wasn’t so bad afterall.”

And, all of that was before New Jersey.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/03/75004495/

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I cried twice in a single twelve hour period, and in retrospect i’m not really too bothered by either. People are meant to cry; it releases the pressure that builds behind your eyelids — builds from sideways glances and offhand comments. And sometimes it is like a broken dam, and sometimes it is the trickle of a leaking faucet.


It is practically spring, and i will definitely ride with the windows down if she lets me.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/03/75002372/

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Earlier…

Septa sometimes paints you a pretty picture, if you get far enough away from the constant hum and hustle of motors in the city. It’s their tracks that caught my attention . . . tendrils arcing out from tangled skeins of track that echo ever inward to create the swirling mess of 30th street station.

The pictures, though, it’s about the pictures.

I am in North Philadelphia, the cool not-quite-evergreen metal of a bench leaving alternating slats of cool and warm skin on the backs of my legs. I imagine that i must look silly – – all curled and cross-legged in my business attire, like a child at a party who’s tired out from playing with the adults.

Which . . . maybe i am.

Just now an older black gentleman walked down into the station, and the heels of his polished shoes rang out against the stairs like hollow wooden bells. He is in a suit so royal blue that i’m fairly convinced that it’s purple. He his with him an oddly shaped silver suitcase and a wide-brimmed hat . . . just now he was sitting on the former and adjusting the latter. For a moment he stood, lifted the case up to a ledge on the wall, carefully opened the clasps, and inside i could see the tell tale velvet that enwombs a shiny instrument . . .a saxophone, or clarinet. But, that peek was all i got, as he snapped it closed and set it back down after only the most cursory inspection.

I wanted to ask him to play . . . i would’ve given him all of my money. Here’s my train.

Funny… i meant to talk about the wooden station with it’s ancient awning, but now i’m headed back. But… i think i still managed to say what i was feeling.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/03/75000951/

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I don’t run much; i am not used to the rhythm of my footfalls and how the ground echoes my impact back up through my legs.

I am at a loss for words, lately. Much like Rabi, i am being drowned in this week’s swirling whirlwind of work. I don’t know how i feel… or, maybe i do know how i feel and i just can’t quite put it into wording that works on the web.

Last night i got home for good around one in the morning, and got to sleep an undetermined amount of time later. Today i left the house just before eleven, and i think i might make it home within twelve hours. This is exciting.

I need a weekend.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/03/10493452/