krisis

Krisis has been creating Crushing Krisis since 2000, writing songs since 1996, and reading comics since 1991. He is a Customer Success and Digital Brand Strategy executive, serial organizer, parent, and feminist, among other things. Based in Philly through 2017, he now resides in Wellington, NZ.

five years stuck on my eyes

December 23, 2006 by krisis

You don’t date a photographer for nearly five years without picking up something – a certain vernacular – but that something is entirely different when you finally have a camera of your own, and nearly unlimited space to store hundreds of indiscriminately snapped digital shots over the course of a day.

Two days into my spree of snapshots and I can’t decide if digital cameras accelerate a photographer’s novice phase or distend it. Sure, it helps to be able to bracket the same shot at every possible exposure and film speed to see the difference in action. Yet, it’s easy to slip into the habit of continuous clicking – shoot now, sort it out later.

I don’t know why I feel I have to master each little thing I lay my hands upon. Just when I was getting decent at theatre I started playing guitar, and I interrupted that to be the best at blogging, and in the middle at being the best at blogging I decided I needed to make a sporting try at singing. I just can’t pick something up with the goal of being mediocre.

Will I ever be as good a photographer as Elise? Will I ever be as good a songwriter as David Bowie? Both aspirations are irrelevant to the reality – the tools of producing pictures and songs and web essays have been democratized, and each tool is a weapon if you hold it right.

I have a new weapon in my arsenal. While I’m futzing with my Flickr account, here’s my favorites from my first forty-eight hours as a photographer.

Philly, Obscured

December 16, 2006 by krisis

The last few days in Philadelphia have started and ended covered in mist. No, not fog, but mist – alive, creeping ever downward until its fingers brush against the asphalt and then sliding out in every direction.

If i liked Hamlet better i might recite something.

Instead i have marveled in my city, so much of it shrouded from view, a place where everything is usually so familiar made novel and mysterious. Each morning the windows behind my cube reveal nothing but white, the buildings just across the street rendered invisible by the opacity of the air that surrounds them. As I leave, the yellow clock of city hall welcomes me to the night, floating in the air like a low, full moon.

Every time I think that I have been here in one place for too long the city finds some way to excite me.

Writer’s Dyke Unplugged

December 11, 2006 by krisis

Two days of a temporary stoppage of post topics was followed by a weekend full of enough blog-worthy happenings that i can hardly keep them all in my head at once! Which will i write about first, and which not at all?

A wonderfully tipsy holiday lunch with my co-workers. Unearthing ancient audio and importing Blogathon posts into WP. Watching Superman Returns and crying every time Brandon Routh looked a lot like Christopher Reeve. How finding a great gift for Gina drove home why my holiday gifts are going to be donation-based, and my subsequent call to my mother to tell her not to buy me any presents. Rehearsing with Gina, and how it feels to finally be able to sing harmony. Playing in a new music showcase, where I was invited to be in a Space-Rock-Opera (and, how Tori Amos is the great uniter of people). The cab-driver I think I may have just imagined. Buying used DVDs from Netflix. The new No-Cast, and how I have a perfect example.

I’m sure i’m forgetting things already, but I had a long, busy, breakless day at work – I’m not exactly raring to write several thousand words about my weekend.

However, while I go unwind: I need a good cover song to go with a Trio topic along the lines of “Advice Untaken.” I have a few ideas, but I’m trying to stay away from the artists I hit last month. Any suggestions/requests?

Work-Me and Home-Work

December 8, 2006 by krisis

My co-workers never quite believe me when i describe the state of disorganization in my home office in the same way that I don’t think any of my friends comprehend what a micro-managing clean-freak i am at work.

A typical day of work starts with my desk completely bare except for my water bottle and two pens (one blue, one red). The only disorder in sight is a few scant papers in my inbox; each of my projects lives in neatly color-coded folder organized by priority.

I start and end each day by writing down the next steps on each of my projects in my notebook. The sorting of my email is completely automated; my inbox has less than four messages in it at all times. I log every phone conversation into a tiny steno book so I can remember what I promised to people, and what messages I need to respond to.

A typical night in my home office starts with my searching for something through three layers of desk (and sometimes floor) detritus: a top layer of recently discarded guitar paraphernalia, a middle layer of mail that i have yet to sort or read, and a bottom layer of things that are on my desk because they have nowhere else to go. There are approximately five square inches of visible desktop, and typically no less than a dozen guitar picks, two ties, and three glasses of water.

I start each night futilely trying to clear a workspace and end it when I can’t think of another website to visit. My inbox is currently hovering near 700 messages, post-spam. I am famous for my call-screening and reluctance to return messages.

At work I hardly ever leave with a task left undone, and at home I barely complete one to-do a day.

Why the contrast? Is it the difference is the organizational tools provided for me at work, or the structure of arriving at a specific time and adhering to a certain dress code, or the hustle of other people working around me?

Today I spent a few hours working from home, and it was a strange dichotomy – my messy desktop combined with my well-pruned work email, my guitar within arm’s reach compared to my rapid response to voice mail. Even with my familiar distractions abounding I switched into corporate-mode without a blink.

When my work-time ended I promptly sat on the floor and fell asleep, face pressed against the crack beneath my door to catch a cool draft from the hallway.

Maybe the difference isn’t anything about the environment, but about how much easier it is to sustain effort without dozing off.

i can’t discern what i’m doing wrong

December 7, 2006 by krisis

When i was in high school i stubbornly grew out my hair into a pony-tail as a protest against keeping up appearances. I would not mousse and gel every morning like every other sap; i didn’t have the time in my day to preen.

(Plenty of irony in that, of course, as i spent plenty of time preening in high school – just not on my hair.)

I am the opposite now, curls everywhere, always fussing. I am utterly defeated by a less-than-stunning day of hair, and lately it has not been so cooperative. So, this morning i coaxed it, treating it to different products – calming gel instead of volumizing mousse, firming pomade instead of stickifying goup.

My hair looked great, curls tamed close to my head like some latter-day star. I was definitely not defeated. But, in place of defeat instead i feel flat. Just like my hair. As if my nature verve is all about volume, and i am utterly reliant on the combo of volume and beauty to equal and energetic and optimistic day.

Or, maybe i could feel this day coming on, and tamed down my hair in anticipation. The reverse peacock effect.

I don’t know.