Year 03

April 7, 2003 by krisis

No, I don’t know why it is snowing in Philadelphia in April.

Someone actually asked me about it this morning – in disbelief that it was happening, i suppose. Unless they thought that i might somehow know something Philadelphia’s meteorologists don’t. And, well, i do know things that they don’t, but those are all about responsible journalism, and not about explaining the weather.

It wasn’t so much snowing as the wind was blowing about a frigidly icy mist, which i encountered at length on my lunch break. This should not have been the case; i did not have any reason to get so well acquainted with today’s weather. All i wanted was a salad. I thought, Surely there is a salad to be had in close enough proximity to my office building that i will not have to encounter enough weather to be forced to comment upon it when i return to my desk.

Actually, there was (a salad to be had); my coworkers recommended me to the “Oh-So-Good” eatery, which sits directly across a relatively easy-to-traverse intersection outside of my building. In fact, someone had just come back from there, and none of us even bothered to ask her about the weather. Perfect.

Oh-So is one of a new urban trend: it is like a lunchbox that packs everything … salads, sushi, soup, sandwiches, and also some things that do not begin with S. I not only gleaned this from my coworker’s description of it, but also because it proudly proclaims its one-shop-feeds-all nature in a series of simple-to-the-point-of-being-semiotic advertisements along their outer walls — they had vaguely registered in my memory from my walk to work, but i didn’t really connect them to whatever they were meant to advertise.

(Knowing me as well as you do, i’m sure you can sense that i’m about to complain about the advertisements. It is rather obvious that that’s where i am heading… why i even both to set these things up so dramatically is beyond me.)

As i exited the lobby of my building, the first advertisement to enter my field of vision was (yes) semiotic in nature. It was so effective that the pictographic on it screamed one and only one thing at me: PENIS!

Yes, it screamed penis. And, the picture that was shouting was not some virile erect vegetable of a penis, that carrot or cucumber that i might have expected since this was meant to be a sign for food and not for… well, not for genitalia. No. It was a remarkably unerect little penis.

Actually, it more resembled a shrimp…

A-Ha!, i thought, it must be a sign for shrimp!. Then, thinking some more, i thought: Surely their advertising people realize that the shrimp looks like a prepubescent penis that just participated in a Polar Bear Club activity. I mean… it barely even looks like shrimp. Or, at least, it definitely does not immediately register in the “yum, i want to eat that” category of my brain.

I continued with this line of thought as i neared Oh-So and it’s Oh-So-Shrimp. Something about the situation bothered me; it wasn’t as if i was suddenly (and uncharacteristically) having a typical male homophobic moment that lead me to fear or revile the shrimp. No. And, i wasn’t experiencing some sort of intelligence deficit that would suddenly render me offended based on some sort of right-wing moral obligation to the public to protect it from lude imagery. No, not that either.

Ah, yes, i had it. It was simply that i was bothered by the fact their advertising people were either too moronic to see that their primary food-glyph looked like an underdeveloped sex organ or too excited by its implication to make it look a touch more shrimp-like. Despite having isolated this, my problem, i found myself physically incapable of entering the building; every time i approached it i was overwhelmed by a lingering contempt by their idea of trendy advertising.

Long story short (too late), i learned all about today’s weather as i walked the two grueling ice-mist filled blocks to Lindsay’s favorite deli to get a salad there, and then another two blocks back into the wind to get back to my building so i could actually eat.

Despite this enlightening journey of the body and mind, i still have no idea why it was snowing in Philadelphia in April

In other cock-related news (ha! a pun!), i went rooster hunting when i returned from work this evening, after an unbelievable alarm-clock-like round of crowing this morning that ran on regular half hour intervals starting at five. I was unable to locate the foul fowl, despite some leads indicating that what i previously thought to be an errant chicken walking around behind CVS was actually said rooster, a pet of the man who lives on the corner. A thorough stalking of his premises revealed no such terror of a bird. I have resolved that if i am woken up at any point before 7am tomorrow by its crowing that i will go outside, find it, and shove it through its owner’s mail slot.

And still i’ve managed not to talk about my new job. Shocking. Maybe tomorrow i can squeeze it in between a discussion of Georgia O’Keeffe paintings and my discovery of an Oh-So-Sign that is implausibly meant to resemble a peach.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/04/200111619/

April 1, 2003 by krisis

There definitely are not any reasons for me to be awake right now, was the first thought to pop into my head at four-thirty this morning, when i found myself awake two and a half hours shy of my clock’s scheduled alarming. After i fully resigned myself to the reality that, yes, i was no longer within the depths of my dreams, my second thought was: What the fuck is making that godawful noise?

Obviously, the noise was not one that i could immediately recognize — not car alarm, nor overloud stereo, nor cat in heat. Actually, it sounded something like the first and the third intertwined and broadcast over the second, but that piece of information did not leave me any closer to knowing what it was. In case you haven’t already gathered, it was not a pleasant sound.

As i rose to a fuller level of consciousness, i initiated an internal round of twenty-questions to attempt to the identify the noise’s source. Where was it coming from? It was not interior to my room. It was not coming from inside of the rest of the house. It was not coming through the wall that i share with our neighbors. It was definitely from outside. It was coming from out back, maybe from the northern side of my block. It was coming at slightly irregular intervals, but with no discernible variations: squw-aw-aw-ah-ack … … … squw-aw-aw-ah-ack … … squw-aw-aw-ah-ack … et cetera.

What was making the noise? Certainly not a naturally occurring phenomenon. Probably not electronic, given the interval length. Could it be animal? Hmm. Would have to be vocal in nature. Not barking, not yowling, not chirping …

Just shy of my twentieth question, i ventured an internal guess that the sound must be that of a rooster who had found himself running slightly ahead of the sunrise schedule. However, i failed to locate any such creature upon poking my head out of the window, and was hesitant to climb out onto my spring-board-of-death/roof in my post-unconscious state. Lacking any other option short of throwing things out of my window, i closed it and retreated to my bed. Whatever it was, it couldn’t possible go on like that for much longer; i could tune it out.

I could not tune it out, and it would not stop. It was awful and piercing, pausing just long enough to raise my hopes that it might be over and then dashing them with another resounding squw-aw-aw-ah-ack. Soon i found myself grinding one ear into the sheets and capping the other with a pillow, altogether enveloped by my heavy blanket. Still, it came. And came. And so forth.

After a short while i began to entertain the idea that if i was forced to lay awake much longer i might get out of bed, dress in several layers of dark clothing, wrap a towel around my face and neck in a burqa-like fashion, go outside and around to the back of my apartment, scale some fences, and confront my nemesis/rooster. Clearly if i could not shake it from its activity i would be force snap the damn thing’s neck. Sleepless, i convinced myself that i would be able to do it. After all, it wasn’t as if i was a vegetarian because i like animals especially much. And the owner ought not to even have it in the city, let alone give it free vocal reign of the pre-dawn hours. It couldn’t possibly be hard to break a rooster’s neck; the trick would just be to catch it. And so forth.

I have no recollection of the noise ever ending, but after nearly an hour of imagining myself as a member of an elite ninja poultry-extermination squad i finally fell back into sleep. When i awoke (at the expected time) i could detect no trace of the noise and, upon reflection, decided that it could not have possibly been a rooster. A rooster? Just the delirium of being woken from deep R.E.M.-sleep talking. Probably some weird foreign car’s alarm. Anyhow, i had to get dressed and be on the way to my second day of work.

A short time later i was outside — halfway down my block, in fact — when i spotted an vaguely familiar neighbor leaving her house. I resolved not to involve her in my ruminations, but as she joined me on the sidewalk my curiosity got the best of me. I blurted: “Can i ask you something very peculiar?” She regarded me skeptically, but apparently decided from the look of my shirt and tie that i could no no worse harm than try to bum a cigarette. She made no move to break stride or reply, so i continued: “Did you hear anything odd last night… around four thirty in the morning?”

Another skeptical look. Today is, i realized, April Fools. She let my question hang for a moment and then wryly (though not icily) replied, “Like what?”

My mouth opened (certainly not a rooster, that’s for sure) and closed (nevermind) and opened again and, seemingly of its own volition, said “Perhaps a, erm, a rooster,” and, emboldened by her lack of immediate ridicule, then amended, “or some other animal that regularly greets the dawn of a new day with a terribly piercing squw-aw-aw-ah-ack sound.” (The sound came out perfectly … as if i had spent all night rehearsing it rather than being tortured by it. I hadn’t spent the whole night rehearsing it, had i? No, i had heard it … heard the rooster/ /foreign-car-alarm /unidentified-squw-aw-aw-ah-acking-object. Right… right?)

Her gaze suddenly renounced its skepticism, leaving a warmly-smiling face in its place. (Her rooster, perhaps?) Then: “Probably just one of the neighbors who’s involved in cock-fighting.” She sounded unconcerned; nonchalant, even. “I’m Dawn, by the way.”

Oh. Sure. One of those. “Oh. Sure. One of those.” I sounded considerably less unconcerned than she did; decidedly chalant, if you will. I quickly attempted to save face in the light of my seemingly puzzled reception of her very succinct answer by adding, “Right… right? (very smooth… for a jackass.) I’m Peter.”

After my incredibly comeback, Dawn and I carried on a sparkling conversation all the way to our bus stop, rooster-free save for her comment that “I’ll hear something more peculiar than that from one of my clients today, that’s for sure.” Which, i suppose, makes perfect sense if you are in the know about the neighborhood cock-fighting ring — which Dawn is. And, if you counsel weird people for a living, which Dawn does.

In comparison, my second day of work seemed entirely normal. Which definitely wasn’t the case…

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/04/200082420/

February 25, 2003 by krisis

I never know what’s going on in my apartment.

There are four of us, spending all of our time alternatingly at work, in class, with our significant others, or on stage. The odds that more than two of us will ever be here at the same time are dwarfed by the odds that the apartment will be empty when one of us arrives.

The way i figure it, you and your college roommates would have to be absolute dweebs for this not to be the case. “Dweebs,” for sure, because the four of us are definitely geeks, so i had to find a word that had more of a “shut-in” connotation.

It’s not hard to spend nearly three quarters of your typical waking hours outside of your collegiate abode; it’s not like we do it intentionally. In fact, occasionally going days at a time without re-entering it really isn’t a challenge — especially when you’re dating someone with their own apartment.

What starts to occur is that, with so many lengthy departures, your home can hold something unusual for you upon your return. Different. It can be full of surprises. And, though these surprises might prove alarming at first, as the length of your residence increases the unusual circumstances that you find yourself entering into become less and less alarming.

Rearranged or missing furniture should not phase you, nor should strangers reclining on said furniture (even if they are the only people presently in your house). The appearance or disappearance of drastically large amounts of any kitchen items, including actual food or liquor, should be duly noted but not unduly fretted over. Finding a sign on your front door that proclaims “Ring hard and often; cover $5” should only bother you if you do not have a doorbell. You should expect to find large new appliances, game / home-theatre systems, or piles of laundry more often than not. You should strive to exhibit no surprise upon the emergence unexpected or unwelcome people from your roommates’ bedrooms. If any of your personal effects seem to be lost or missing, even from your own room or bathroom area, you should allow ample time for them to be returned or replaced before entering a period of mourning.

Then there are the notes. Even in this technologically advanced age, notes are the most effective form of roommate to roommate conversation. Why? You can blow off an email, but there is only so long that you can profess to ignore something that is affixed to your doorknob, disco ball, toilet-lid, television screen, Brita pitcher, or bedroom door. Additionally, you should learn to anticipate what will at first seem like non-sequitir content in said notes, which will eventually bloom to make a terrifying amount of sense once you put the correct context in place, as in the only vaguely exaggerated examples that follow:

Please extinguish your own toaster fires.

Do not poke at the holes in the bathroom ceiling.

For your own safety do not open the closet door until Animal Control arrives.

You have 24 hours to return all dinnerware to the kitchen before a fine goes into effect.

and, a personal favorite excerpted from Elise’s house:

Dear tenants … I am leaving the country to serve in the Isreali army, hopefully to return in March … These are the best years of your life; make sure to have fun every day … Signed: Your Landlord.

College… it’s an adventure.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/02/390367882/

February 2, 2003 by krisis

The week that i moved into my first apartment was also the only week i’ve ever owned a cell phone. Actually, it was on loan from Drexel as part of my employment as a peer leader. Only two and a half years later and all that i can remember is working long days in our tiny cloistered room in The Armory, after which i would take a short but exhilarating walk back to my new home. Short to the tune of seven blocks, but exhilarating because it carried me off of the Drexel campus map and onto poorly lit residential streets that were known to host such threats as maliciously drunk frat-boys and the very occasional mugger.

In the beginning i would get so tense walking home from work that i would nervously finger the nine key on my company phone, as i had it set to speed dial the police. At the time i was new to the feeling of my own keys in my hand, and could not help but finger them constantly while my other hand readied for action, especially when i turned up the always-dark thirty-sixth street from Powelton. And, though I always tell prospective students that i’ve never been harassed or mugged for a reason i have the distinct feeling that neither my shiny new keys and tightly-clutched phone were that reason.

Walking down Walnut street tonight with Elise’s cell phone in my hand recalled the experience for just a moment, blogged-about but forgotten in the interim. Of course, now i am thrust into what actually qualifies as West Philadelphia rather than blocks of expensive double homes, and i am now typically as oblivious to any potential dangers the streets hold in store for me as i was trigger-happy on the nine button back in the day.

Oddly, i felt strangely alone out on the street — somehow totally out of place, as if i was being blue-screened onto a city block from the safety of a comfortably heated studio. As if a digital jaws or T-rex could snap me up as i rounded a corner, represented by your common Philly street thug. Or, you know, an actual screen-monster approximately as threatening.

Tonight was literally the first time i had a cell phone in my personal possession for more than a minute or two since those tense walks home in 2000; Elise had given me hers so i could call her to consult on Ben & Jerry’s flavors, but as the neon sign of the convenience store disappeared behind the slope of Walnut street i found the phone at my ear. Elise just a speed dial button away; I wouldn’t call her just because i was afraid, though. No, of course not.

What i would do, though, is have an embarrassingly loud one-sided conversation about themes of materialism and submissiveness in Moulin Rouge as they relate to modern feminism. Not exactly guaranteed to scare away muggers, but i suppose i was hoping to portray that any startled girly screams in the middle of such a heated debate would be construed as distress calls rather than me conceding that Nicole’s tuberculosis had nothing to do with damning her character as soon as she became more than a high class hussy.

But, really, i hated that movie.

When i finally reached my own corner the phone was still pressed to my ear with Elise only a hot key away, and i felt confident enough to finally relax my death grip on her tiny Motorola. However, it was then that i saw it.

A cat — my first assumption; fair, i think. It wasn’t as big as Elise’s dreadnought-sized house felines, but not unreasonable for a feisty-but-underfed outdoor tom. Upon a second glance i saw that the tail wasn’t right… not high and wagging like a cat’s. Not even right for being a bit damp and put out. In fact, more like outrightly straight, and tapered near the end. Not especially fluffy.

As i got closer the silhouette of its face began to resolve so that i could make out out not an adorable button of a kitty nose, but a snout. Yes, definitely a snout. At this point i upgraded my estimate from stray to opossum, although i had no guesses as to what an opossum would be doing wandering around on Walnut street at this time of year. Or any time of year.

At this juncture i idly pressed the call button on the cell so as to share my speculation with Elise. I had only gotten halfway into what i’m sure was a very clever introductory sentence about the migratory patterns of opossum when my quarry turned to face me and i discovered that it was not a cat, opossum, or even a deformed pan-handler. No, none of the above, not by any stretch of my overstimulated and sleep-deprived imagination.

Indeed, it was a rat. A rat that had grown so large that even seeing it full on i was tempted to believe it was a mutated house cat. Let me put that into perspective for you: big enough that it cannot be obscured by a single car tire; too menacing to beat to death with a flip-flop; large enough that it immediately evoked a fire-swamp joke after i was done screaming like a little girl at the top of my lungs at one thirty in the morning in the middle of a deserted West Philadelphia street.

I’m not sure if that scared away the muggers or attracted them.

The ROUS continued to stare me down while Elise casually dismissed my peril — i took her hanging up on me as an implicit refusal to rush down the stairs to arm me with a burning torch, large steak knife, or can of disinfectant lysol.

There we stood: girly boy desperately clutching a cell phone and two pints of Ben & Jerry’s and rodent … rodent and girly boy desperately clutching a cell phone and two pints of Ben & Jerry’s and rodent. After a bone-chilling minute where i thought i would be forced to lob a pint of Coffee Heath Bar Crunch at the thing’s head, it nobly retreated to the barely sufficient cover of an Accord tire so that i could breathless dart past it. My keys now added to the list of precious cargo clutched tightly to my chest, i was more urgently tense during those fleeting moments of escape than i ever was three years ago on the front stoop of my apartment building.

Moral: Cell phones cannot protect you from everything. At least, not unless you have the speed dial for Animal Control directly between the one for your unsympathetic girlfriend and 911.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/02/90266022/

January 22, 2003 by krisis

Kitschy retro diners are supposed to make you feel as though you have stepped away from the outer world and into the protective womb of the fifties. All the counters are clean, all the waitresses wear white, and all the food is decidedly nationalistic — with only slight nods to South of the Border Sauce to even remind you of the global complexities that await outside after you pay the balance of your check.

Today, sitting alone at an empty counter, i found myself wondering how strict a typical retro diner is with its staff about anachronisms. To my recollection i have never been served onion rings in such a fine establishment by anyone wearing a digital watch, but not all potentially meal-spoiling anachronisms are so conveniently dated. What about hair scrunchies?, i mused. And, at that point at a loss for some other easily identifiable item, or breast augmentation? Before i could get too involved in that particular arm of speculation my waitress arrived with a menu and, to my unending delight, bobby pins holding her hair back.

As she handed me my menu i thought that i am never quite sure what to think of my physical appearance, which i described just last night as “androgynously timeless.” Still, today i am surely at my best: just enough stubble to suggest i might not be in high school, bangs carefully crafted with a sticky mess of pomade, wool scarf wrapped around my neck. I never expect anyone to notice me, though; i am typically a cypher on a crowded street, slipping through a crowd while remaining completely unremarked on.

My waitress commenced flirting with me shortly after i informed her that i was trying to decide if i was hungry enough to have something beyond my initial order of rings. Her hair was auburn and pulled back by the aforementioned bobbies, leaving only a few escaped crinkles to frame a face set with remarkably blue eyes. Actually, the flirting coincided exactly with my first free refill of lemonade, which by rights should have cost me a dollar sixty-nine.

The subtle irony of her name being Laurel did not escape me.

I, of course, am oblivious to flirting even when aware of it, if that makes any sense at all. Eventually Laurel coaxed an order out of me, and by the time she disappeared to put in a request for Smokehouse Turkey Burger i had finally caught on. Back she came, burger in hand. She smiled. As i ate i listened to her talk to a co-worker about how she needed off on Friday because her roommate was in a show, and she had promised months ago to attend but had then totally forgotten. She intermittently peeked over her shoulder at the fryer, idly drumming her fingers on the counter if she felt as if it was taking too long.

I decided the cut of her khakis could not have existed before the seventies, though i have no ideas about the origin of the style of underwear which non-too-quietly broadcasted itself through said pants. She came by to give me my fourth free lemonade refill and asked me if everything was okay, and i quickly gulped down my food to reply. “Yes. You could bring a check,” which came off as very charming, i’m sure.

As i came within three bites of finishing my burger i wistfully glanced out the window at the bustle of South Street, trying to imagine the stores that would have dotted its sidewalks fifty years ago. I can already tell that i will be one of those old people that talks about how different things were when i was young because i do it already and, i suppose in connection to that, i am fascinated by the idea of Philadelphia as it was decades ago. The buildings, the cars, the fashion, the people.

As much as i might like to pretend, we had no place there: me with my headphones draped around my neck and her with those bothersome khaki pants. Unable to find a way around my unsuspended disbelief and into the background of a scene from Dobie Gillis, i decided to leave. Laurel deserved twenty percent, if not for the pleasant flirting then for the seven dollars of free lemonade, and i found that my wallet contained exactly one hundred and twenty percent of the bill — down to the last cent. I placed it on the counter, neatly folded on top of a clean napkin, and left without a word.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/01/90220367/