Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand
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.
by krisis
I am blogging from my home computer.
I am blogging from a DSL connection.
I am blogging while streaming my favourite Peter Mulvey song. In surround sound.
I do believe my technological life just experienced a much-deserved upgrade.
Improvements to my personal life still forthcoming…
by krisis
Sometimes it is just there in the pit of your stomach, bubbling under. Each little phrase and laugh is a dig at you, winging across the room to impact like a punch to the solar plexus and, while everyone else has their head thrown back with laughter, you are just slowly reaching your break point. You are trying not to boil over, but there is always that one irrelevant thing that someone says that is the coup de grace — the blow you cannot recover from.
They had been verbally working me over for an hour and i don’t even think they realized it, even after i left. My food had stuck in my throat for a second, and i could feel myself turning a little red, and then i wasn’t in control of it anymore. Boiling over. Screaming, cursing, slamming, until i was out of there and down Walnut Street and back in my room. I wasn’t in control of it; my body entered some sort of social fight-or-flight reflex on my behalf. Some quick words to the roommates, and then i was up the stairs and locking the door, and on my bed i was mouthing over and over “i can’t change anything, i can’t change anything.” And i know that i can’t. I know that i am two decades into this and that i set myself up for this fall for my entire life, but it doesn’t making the landing any easier.
I knew it couldn’t possibly work twice in a row.
Last night i was miserable and so i went out. It was a good idea; sitting around and moping wasn’t going to fix anything. Tonight i had the same impulse, but although it was well-intentioned of me i think that i realistically should have realized that it was time for a recharge Because, if i don’t take time to recenter every so often i manage to let people see through to what’s underneath. And, that never works out too well.
by krisis
I sure can say a lot while avoiding saying what’s on my mind.
I figure if i keep interspersing these short ones, the longer ones won’t seem so bad ;)
by krisis
I could just keep writing.
Do you remember when it used to be like that? Just me and the computer, and no obsessiveness about readability or narrative voice or spacing out my posts? Just me and my unending stream of consciousness? It’s so different now… now i am worried that this will mean that you’re not reading the things i spent time on. Quality. I never used to have a concept of quality, just a concept of what i wanted to say. Now i let posts languish on the main page for a day at a time to make sure it’s good and read before the next one arrives — i want to increase the signal and decrease the noise. But, it doesn’t feel anything like i remember. Nothing like it at all.
How did i manage to forget what i wanted to say? Now writing an update every fifteen minutes, or even on the hour … it seems like insanity. I can type a lot of words in fifteen minutes, and i can hit publish a lot of times in an hour. I suppose i’m afraid that it’s not the sheer me of the writing that is interesting, but the time and careful effort that i put into it. I have become afraid to just say what i think. The crux of the matter is that i am looking for a different kind of recognition now, one that is very intrinsically linked to quality rather than to quantity. Only, maybe there was some quality to it, you know? Something right about just writing until i ran out of thoughts of things to say.
I don’t really remember what my life was like fifteen months ago; i can’t remember how it felt day to day. But, the words are all there, to prove that it happened. So, i suppose i just want to prove that this is happening, you know?
by krisis
Weird spectral gray overlapping spring-like warmth wrapped in wind that delivers howl upon howl. Isn’t it supposed to be warm, she kept asking as i slung my scarf over one shoulder (as if we were owed another down payment on spring, you know?). It was supposed to be something else, of that i’m pretty sure. Strange five second downpour erupting so fast as to catch my back with its stray drippy claw as i slid into the main building. Later i found it clawing at my roof as i was lying curled in my bed under the eave, just listening and playing Dorothy. “Somewhere,” you know? But, there weren’t any blue skies to be found at the time, and just the normal amounts of technicolor outside when i slid out to check. The gray had given away to purple night, and accompanying it was just wind … bitter wind delving in-between my fingers and down to my toes.
I can wait like this, i thought.
I stood out on the front porch and sang at the top of my lungs — first songs i love, and then songs i wrote, and then just riffing backwards over myself in a human loop of feedback. I wrapped my voice around me as if it would keep me warmer than my slowly disintegrating mod-squad jacket, letting each quaver wrap me tightly in another sonic layer of warmth. People on the block were playing an open/close of musical doors so that someone was on another porch at any given time, but no one seemed to hear me.
You’ve got a very nice voice, a man said as he walked by wrapped tightly against the wind. My surprised thank you took flight on the breeze like a single snowflake, unique and forgettable.
Hands back to pockets, keys to unlock door: maybe i would rather wait inside.