Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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And, now, for another episode of Writer’s Block Theatre.

When we last left our hero, he was awaiting a response to his record reviews with bated breath. Would he finally get to write for an honest to goodness newspaper? We pick up shortly after Peter receives the paper’s reply as we fade up from black. Though he was initially joyous at their friendly invitation of “Welcome Aboard,” over the course of the day he realizes that the congratulatory email has delivered him the worst possible news – his new editor is more interested in what he feels about records than what he thinks, and is hopeful that he will revise his reviews to this effect.

Peter stammers as he recoils in fright from this newly transformed message. “But… but… feelings are the root of all bad record reviews!,” he exclaims as he slowly backs away from the screen. “I’ve spent years detaching myself from new records so i can offer tidy unbiased opinions of them. Saying that any record i own by someone other than Ani or Tori makes me feel anything is an utter lie! I’ve reduced reviewing music to science!”

“Is that so?”

A voice rises from behind him; Peter whirls as though he’s being confronted by another of his worst fears only to find Amy sitting on his guitar amp nonchalantly leafing through a Rolling Stone. He opens his mouth to speak, but she silences him with a wilting glance.

“How you feel will influence anything you write, Peter, so you can just come down from the damned pedestal and write with some feeling for the benefit of all of us people who don’t consider each cd purchase a new child.”

Temporarily ignoring the implication that he would feel the need to be scientifically detached from all of his children so that none would feel more liked than the next, Peter madly gestures back towards the screen. “But, Aim, feelings? Why should someone buy a record based on how i feel? They don’t even know me!.”

Amy fixes Peter with a cool glare from over a two-page spread of Ewan McGregor. “Peter, are they really compromising your journalistic morals here, or is it a possibility that you’re so excited about this job that you just have cold feet.”

Peter’s only reply is silence.

“Well?”

“Erm… possibly mildly chilled feet.”

Amy nods to herself. “Just as i thought,” her face is buried in the magazine before the next sentence escapes her lips, “now get to writing.”

His moral quandary solved by the quick wit of his friend, Peter is again faced with the computer screen — now sinisterly blank white as it awaits his feelings about the Wilco record. Slowly, he approaches the keyboard.

(Cut to black, commercial airs while Peter frantically tries to decide if he honestly feels anything about Yankee Foxtrot Hotel)

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/06/85175275/

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They are cutting down trees with an official sanction, six orange trucks lined up nose to tail down the bike line of my street. The men are in jumpsuits, matching, carrying chainsaws and hackblades and wearing tinny little hats. They spoke to me, one of the identically suited men, asked me “Is your car parked on this street, sir?” They couldn’t begin their chopping because none of us had headed the warning, he said, that we weren’t supposed to park here today. I just smiled and said that i don’t drive, though i was inwardly thinking “No, i will not move it. I like the trees just how they are.”


Silly electric company with their flimsy power lines … can’t stand up to some branches and leaves.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/06/85166770/

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Duct tape the damned thing into the window, that’s what i intended to do. Because i will not be waking up at five thirty in the morning stuck to my own self and coughing, hacking, until finally i crawl out across the hall to the bathroom so as not to wake up Elise. My personal alarm clock seems to be set for five thirty despite the level of humidity present, but i can’t help but think that i’d have a shot at a whole night’s sleep if i didn’t have so much trouble breathing — this morning with hands braced on other side of the sink either trying to keep me standing or trying to aim well in the dark, fiddling with her stupid drain that always falls down when it should be staying up. I wound up downstairs on the new couch doing a crossword as my vision slowly doubled from the percocet until finally each box had halfway overlapped into its neighbor and i knew it was time to sink back into a largely restless slumber.


I’ve never owned my own duct tape before; it makes me feel powerful. The air in here is cool now, and the doors are closed. It’s my own damned clubhouse. Now if only i brought the portable fridge in with me…

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/06/85165007/

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I woke up from surgery almost exactly eight days ago, and at the time i couldn’t feel any part of my mouth. The state of affairs made it nearly impossible to talk much or open my mouth up too far. Furthermore, as i’ve found in the past, i am an absolutely headcase when i come out of anesthesia – i’m very sensitive to small stimuli.

There i was, Monday morning without a fairly useless body part that i had grown to utterly despise, unable to talk, and wearing a dotted dressing gown. From somewhere down the hall music wafted past, and my softened brain sucked it in like a sponge. “Here Comes The Sun” was recognized immediately, though i couldn’t even begin to approximate the process of humming along. Instead, i immediately turned to my somewhat distraught mother and exclaimed “It’s okay mom, George Harrison is here with me.”

My mother apparently took my accompaniment by a blessed Beatle to mean that i was moving towards the light, and thus became even more upset. Of course, being a mother whose sensitivity to art was washed away by the brutal reign of the television and trickle-through exposure to N’Sync singles, she had already forgotten that my secondary reason for being so upset the last time i was in the hospital for a procedure was that George had just died.

I explained it to her later: Obviously he’s become my guardian angel

Her response? Something about a flying Beatle.


Har har, mom. Har har.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/06/85160576/