Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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.

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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?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9296395/

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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.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9296247/

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I’m not sure what came over me.

Okay, i’m actually quite sure of what came over me. I had been having a shitty depressing day and i didn’t want it to continue into a shitty night and possibly an altogether miserable weekend. I decided that a Best Friend was needed to salvage what was left of my evening, so i put in a phone call to Laurel.

What’s strange is that i don’t do this; i don’t call people up on a Friday night to see what they’re doing. If there’s a party i’ll be there, and if we’re all going out to eat i might show up, but i’m not really into the whole one-on-one hanging out scene. It’s like dating without the date. Or something. But, anyhow, tonight i really just needed to get out of the house, and Laurel was heading out to see a mutual acquaintance of ours play at the NorthStar, so off we went.

I had never been inside of NorthStar bar, because every time someone i want to see plays there it’s not an all ages show. Being an all ages show, tonight was heavy on the college crowd and what had to be a couple dozen fourteen-year-olds who were definitely more punk than i’ll ever be. I am, let’s face it, about as non-punk as it gets. Well, other than Laurel. Although, Laurel at least has boppy ska-grrl potential if we were to get her into a plaid skirt. I, on the other hand, looked like i got lost on the way to a very touching Emo concert; i self-consciously shoved my token studded bracelet into my pocket with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

Laurel happened to be less punk than me precisely because of her bopping … she’s totally unembarrassed to dance around and have a good time, regardless of whether or not she’s fitting in with “the scene.” I, on the other hand, am definitely intimidated by scenes — so much so that i feel desperately out-of-place even at an Ani DiFranco concert (where i probably have as much scene credibility as anyone in the room who isn’t a lesbian). In light of this, i was of the more toe-tapping head-nodding persuasion until the last band came on and we pushed our way up to the front, at which point i actually exhibited some shoulder-movement and general rhythmic body-bopping. With much awkward self-consciousness, of course.

As embarrassment goes, we were definitely a distant second to the massive fist-fight that broke out when a Neanderthalic mosher crash landed too many times on a highly strung hard-core guy. Aside from the frightening part where i had to catch Laurel and ascertain that she hadn’t been struck with a ham-sized fist it was rather amusing; i’ve never been at a concert small enough that the performers stopped mid-song to admonish the moshers. But, anyway, it certainly drew attention away from our toddler-like dancing.

You know, i bet if they bopped more they’d be less violent.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9293457/