Crushing Krisis

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Year 08

Happy Birthday To This

by

I.

Lately I’ve been struggling with the concept of success – specifically, how to discern the difference between progress and success.

I am always progressing – I do not do well with sitting still. Nevertheless, moving forward doesn’t equal succeeding. Motion doesn’t equal a milestone.

Or, at least, that’s my typical mantra of over-achievement.

It can be hard mantra to upkeep; over-achievement requires a lot of regular achievement to maintain, and that requires plenty of milestones to mow down while you’re in motion.

It’s an especially hard mantra to have when no new milestones are in sight … when it starts getting tempting to view motion as a milestone. It’s akin to the kid who wants a teevee break just for doing the first page of his homework. Should I reward myself just for learning one new song, or completing one workout? The slope from those minor successes to learning a new chord or doing one push-up is treacherously slippery.

This was the quandary that stopped my progress cold last week, grinding my life to a halt. I spent a long night of discussion with Elise, reviewing the successes of the past year, and trying to figure out how to translate further forward motion into more milestones.

Elise is the panacea to those inconsolable moments, and as we laid in bed talking it became apparent that part of the problem is that I had forgotten the other, single, proven solution to all of my various doldrums – eight years of Crushing Krisis archives documenting every success and failure, and all the moments of paralysis found in between the two.

Eight years of proof that I am always in motion, and always finding a new milestone.

II.

As of today Crushing Krisis is an alarming eight years old – absolutely ancient in blogging years, and still the reigning longest running blog in my fine city of brotherly love.

I have a blog old enough to be in third grade. If that’s not a major milestone, I don’t know what is.

Not only is CK itself a milestone, it’s a collection of them – a chronicle of my greatest hits, the succcesses that sketch my evolution from aimless straight-A college student and hapless singer-songwriter through hopelessly overcommitted yuppy and emerging artist.

The amazing thing about the last twelve months is how many successes they encompassed. I played a show at the Tin Angel with my band (two, actually). I got engaged to the love of my life. I completed six months of voice-lessons, emerging with newly revitalized vocals. Lyndzapalooza threw not only a hugely successful music festival, but two modestly awesome off-season events. I finally became the senior member of my team at work. I’m planning the most kick-ass party I’ve ever thrown, which coincidentally happens to be my wedding.

In hindsight I feel as though the vast majority of my personal greatest hits record is contained in the last year of my life – like I’m one of those artists who has one big album and that ten years later my record company will release a 21st Century Masters collection of me that regurgitates that one album end-to-end, plus some random cover I did for a soundtrack.

In the midst of all those hits I could easily lose track of the progress I made, but that’s exactly what CK is here for. I already chose the best of them to feature in the Year 8 topic, but my most indelible memories extend far beyond the posts I’d deem as “best.”

Our band got censored for the first time. I had two of my most memorable taxi-driver conversations. I played a game of “what if I managed Britney?” I conquered my quarter-life crisis. I co-invented (and later conducted) an Upscale Bar Crawl. I blogged daily for an entire month for no reason at all, highlighting my favorite (remastered) Trio Tracks along the way.

I dissected Radiohead’s record release, along with the entirety of the “blogosphere.” I became fascinated for an entire night by a trick of photography. I learned valuable lessons from my longest period of bachelorhood in the past half decade.

I began telling the story of our engagement, further chronicled here and here. I disclosed my previously deeply personal delight in hot food eaten cold. I saw Elise’s brother make his theatrical debut. I posted a rare Trio that I liked as soon as it was recorded.

I contemplated being a real band. I reflected on my childhood masquerade as a born-again Christian. I posted yet another awesome-right-out-of-the-box Trio. I celebrated Gina’s birthday by recounting our first time singing together. I cultivated an ulcer. I learned about sibling rivalry by way of working out regularly for the first time in my life, and in the process got to know Elise’s sister a little bit better.

I almost shattered the fragile, bird-like skeleton of one of my SVPs. I taught the entire internet how to edit their MySpace Music profiles (seriously, you should see the referrals I get on that one damn post). I nearly got laughed out of a coffee-shop due to my savant-like knowledge of Clue.

I played my band’s first honest-to-goodness solo gig, and made friends with 13-year-olds. I spoke at my mother’s wedding, and reflected on how just a few decades ago mine would be illegal in some states. I became a big brother, and started becoming my mother, all in the span of a week. I reflected on GBLT rights in Iraq by way of Ani DiFranco and teenage theatre. I posted the best and worst of my teenage poetry.

And, still fresh in my mind, I was the victim of a crime of hate.

Other things happened too – good things and bad things left unsaid as I skipped a few months of blogging while I was out succeeding a life.

I never finished our engagement story. I haven’t been blogging about wedding prep, including dress shopping and invite-making. I didn’t relate how I got chewed out by a co-worker for bashing Jesus on our last Live @ Rehearsal disc. I continuously redacted a post entitled “Figure Skating Pants” because it never turned out as funny on-screen as it was in my head. You haven’t yet heard about house-hunting.

A hundred other things.

If Crushing Krisis is as much about progress as it is about success, as much about motion as it is about milestones, it’s also as much about silence as it is about sound. My evolution is sketched as much by the words I withhold as the ones I write.

III.

I write these birthday posts each year … letters to my future self. Internet time travel.

Last year I said:

If Year 6 of Crushing Krisis was about finding stability, then this past year has been converting stability into happiness.

To amend that quote, if Year 7 was about converting stability into happiness, this past year was about finding a way for happiness and success to finally co-exist in my life.

In their own quiet way, those successes have brought me as close to quitting CK as I’ve ever been. Even though this blog documents my successes the actual act of blogging is all progress, and progress without success in sight can be daunting.

On and off, I plotted CK’s demise. Merge it into a band blog, I thought. Not as important as wedding planning, I decided. My writing has already peaked, it’s time to focus on other things, I resolved. Not saying much of importance anyway, I mused. It’s not as if anyone’s reading it, I whined. Blogs are ubiquitous and thus unremarkable, I opined. I’m out of things to say, I worried.

Yet, here I am, still, heading into Year 9.

Why? Because Crushing Krisis is one of the best ideas I’ve ever had, one of the best things that has ever happened to me, and the best way I know to show that I am not only progressing into adulthood but slowly and surely succeeding at life.

And because of you. You – indefinable and intangible, yet indefatigable.

Not just you – singular you, tu – you there on the other side of the screen reading this now, so much as you – plural you, vous – all of you. The royal you. The Schrodinger’s Cat of you. The mere potential of you.

“You” could mean you – now, in the present, two seconds after I post this; you – far in the future, maybe after I’ve gone; you – both of you; or you – neither of you … some other you entirely.

Thank you, no matter which you I am addressing. Thank you for being a part of and a party-to my never-ending progress and my continuing success. Thank you for reading, listening, commenting, and linking. Thank you for your time, for your attention, and for being you.

Thank you. And, happy birthday to this.

Steer Clear

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Last Saturday we awoke to some vicious knocks on our door, and declined to answer.

It was another block party on our street – another one of dubious legality where we were given less than ten hours of notice before its start – one situated plumb in the middle of our first long weekend together this year. We keep to ourselves, and no one thinks to ask us to sign their petition, or remind us there is a party upcoming, or ask us we have anything to contribute (such as, I don’t know, my mixing equipment? But, I digress).

So, we declined to answer. The first time. But a few minutes later the knocks came again, insistent and vicious.

We had hoped to sleep in – at the back of the house, away from the noise.

No such luck.

I dressed quickly, pieces patched together, and flung open the door to be greeted by an unfamiliar face. White, stubbly, firepluggish but not so intimidating, a tattoo or scar on his cheek next to his eye.

“Izzat your car?” Gesturing broadly at a boxy sedan parked a few spots to the right of our door. Already a tent had been struck on our sidewalk, nearly obstructing our front steps.

I replied sharply. “Look, we don’t own a car, and even if we did we wouldn’t have to move it for the block party. That’s not how the permit works.”

I closed (not slammed) the door to an echo of protest (“Hey, I’ll break your door down and kick your ass”), but that was a wolf not big or bad enough to warrant my concern on a summer Saturday morning. I’ve lived in South Philly long enough to know an idle threat.

Nothing else happened, and several hours of booming, inescapable music later we left. We were dressed as sharp as my earlier words for Erika’s engagement party, and everyone on the block saw us depart just as the daylight was ripening into a pretty golden evening.

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The party, which is a topic for another time, was wonderful. The two parts that are germane to this story are that I drank quite a bit of Bombay Sapphire and we that took a cab home shortly after 3 a.m.

I stepped (stumbled) out of the cab, intent on a trip to the bathroom and the chance to get into some more comfortable clothes (having entrusted Elise with my wallet and the ability to do arbitrary math).

At the steps I fetched (fumbled for?) my keys, and when I looked up I was greeted with black magic marker scrawl across our door:

Steer Clear of Queer

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Was it the message or the gin that sent me into hysterical sobs, pounding on the door with my fists until it was feeling unsure on its hinges?

Does it matter? What was I supposed to feel, or do, the first time a message of discrimination I’ve heard off and on for years at parties and bars and from passing cars found itself tangible and branded on my home?

The next part is a blur: Elise getting to the door, our exchange, my dash into the house only to collapse on the floor, crying, screaming:

“This is our house; I just want to live here.”

Elise, rational and sober, called 911, and discovered as she shut the door that our newfound aphorism had been accompanied by an even more tangible reminder – used cat litter fed painstakingly through our mail slot so that it would be swept across our threshold when the door was opened.

I’ll spare you the visit of the police, protective and sympathetic, or my repeated calls to Lindsay, my voice splintering and breaking as I screamed to her that I didn’t understand, upset as much about myself as with my demographic-sharing double, the straight white male who thought this sort of thing was okay to go writing on someone’s door because he didn’t have enough muscles or force when he opened it or because he left the house in a wrong-colored shirt, and also how I would be happy for people to write on my door and shove crap through my mail slot for the rest of my life as long as they left Lindsay and Kate and our gay neighbors (yes, the irony) alone and in peace.

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I would never compare this experience to the discrimination that other people endure every day. It was passive – intimidation from a coward. It’s not even really about me. It’s not even really offensive, as a statement.

Yet while I would never compare, it remains that those words were written on our home, and that the crime of petty vandalism was undoubtedly about hate. I articulated as much to the lieutenant in my living room, feeling strangely sober and my stare fixed on the floor.

“Do you feel that this was a hate crime?

“Yes, officer. All that matters is what he thought of me when he opened the door, and the intended effect of his message.”

“I’m so sorry this happened to you and your roommate.”

“Fiancee,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. “We’re getting married.”

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With Sunday came concern; we had no way of knowing if the vandalism was an arbitrary one-time event or the first step of continuing harassment; we didn’t know if it was the work of a single actor or a faceless group of disgruntled neighbors. But we discovered that – after the initial shock – we were not concerned about the words on our door.

To scurry out that morning to clean it off would mean we didn’t want the neighbors to see. To cover it up surreptitiously by cover of darkness would mean we didn’t want to be seen responding to it.

Both would show that the message met its mark – that it had intimidated us. We may be a lot of things – maybe even a little queer – but one of them certainly isn’t easily intimidated.

I’ve been avoiding this box all this week because I’ve been uncomfortable with my own voice – the voice that got me into this mess – just as I haven’t felt comfortable in my own living room. Now that our door is finally back to its single solid color (plus a peephole) I also feel okay to return here, my virtual home, to begin to describe how I feel … how I’ve felt the graffiti on my own skin all week, how our house feels different now, and how every time I approach our door I am ever-so-nauseous in anticipation.

As to why we ultimately decided to leave the words on display until our landlord could have them painted over in broad daylight for the entire block to witness, Elise blogged it better than I ever could, so I’ll let her speak for me:

[I]t doesn’t reflect on us, it reflects on the people who did this and on the people who allowed it to happen. It’s a reminder to us of what emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually small people are capable of (though we would still see it there whether we painted it over or not), and it’s a reminder to everyone else that while this time we were the target, it could just as easily be them, next time.

They probably have not realized this, yet.

Alla This

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On Thursday morning I was very much in my head while sitting on the trolley, listening to Ani DiFranco’s madly terrific new song “Alla This.” The song is partially about the intersection of the personal and the political, with Ani at one point delivering the following:

i won’t rent you my time
i won’t sell you my brain
i won’t pray to a male god
cuz that would be insane
and i can’t support the troops,
cuz every last one of them’s being duped,
and i will not rest a wink
until the women have regrouped

I already love the song as much as anything she’s done this decade, but at her concert earlier this month that verse sent a thrill through my body – in eight lines it succinctly hits commercialism, religion, war, and feminism. Amazing.

The verse ended as I stepped off the trolley, and my mind began to wander. I thought about Ani’s constant challenging of the patriarchal status quo, and how any form of discrimination ultimately connects back to that hegemony.

In the distance between the trolley doors and the stairs to sunlight somehow that rolled into my wondering about the Iraqi citizens, and if life has actually improved for those that exist outside of the patriarchy both of that nation and of the force the world is imposing on it.

I wondered, what about the gays and lesbians in Iraq? I knew nothing about this group, though I was sure they existed. What was their life like before the invasion, and what was it like now? While I am advocating for the rights of my lesbian friends to marry are their Iraqi counterparts struggling for the simplest of rights – for the ability to exist as themselves without fear?

Sometimes my brain and the internet do a peculiar zeitgeist tango, where the same day I wonder about a topic it shows up in my daily reading, and sure enough when I got to my desk CNN was running a story entitled “Gays in Iraq terrorized by threats, rape, murder.”

As it turns out, as the Iraqi government came unmoored the situation of their GBLT citizens deteriorated. Any hint of their sexuality risks not only their own lives, but the lives of their entire families.

What a terrifying closet to be trapped within.

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Just a day later I was at the Philadelphia Theatre Company to see Elise’s brother in his weekly theatre lab.

One of his classmates – barely a teenager – wrote a brilliant play about how bullying can go too far, as the actions of a few are enabled by the inaction of their peers at large. Here the result was the death of a young girl at the hands of her tormentors – their faces unimportant, as all of her classmates were complicit in her fate.

In the play’s last scene Elise’s brother acted as a federal agent, gingerly interrogating one of the girl’s classmates, getting nowhere. Finally, grimly, he asks her:

“Is it true that the girl who was murdered had a crush on you?”

And then, brilliantly, sparking immediate tears in my eyes as much for his delivery as for the line itself:

“Have you ever heard of a boy named Matthew Shepard?”

So powerful, and from the pen of a girl half of my age. Vital proof that we still have some terrifying closets of our own, whether their doors are open or closed.

As the lights came up, Ani’s voice rung out again in my mind as the voice of murdered girl, of those Iraqi men, of Matthew, and of Larry.

i will not stand immersed,
in this ultra violent curse
i won’t let you make a tool of me
i will keep my mind and body free
bye bye minutiae
of the day to day drama,
i’m expanding exponentially,
i am consciousness without identity

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A few nights ago we were walking home after a sushi dinner, talking about all the shopping Elise and her brother did earlier in the day.

During the conversation he mentioned finding a particularly awesome pair of jeans in his exact size, and I caught myself subconsciously filing his size away for later use in case I ever see a similar pair in my travels.

And then I thought, OH MY GOD I HAVE BECOME MY MOTHER.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2008/07/3351/

Loving

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There were kittens in our yard, but now there are not.

You were going to get a whole post about the joys of kittens and the joys of pet fostering, with a smattering of Bob Barkerisms, but we returned from work to find said kittens and accompanying momma gone from the yard.

So, no wacky kitten pictures with captions in stilted lolzcatian English.

Honestly, I’m only mentioning it now so that in five years I can recall when it was we found the kittens in our yard.

So, for historical reference, the apparent close of the kitten incident happens to coincide with the first day of legal same-sex marriages in California.

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Just as I am a feminist, I am an advocate for civil rights for everyone, and that includes the GBLT community. I honestly don’t understand how anyone can not be an advocate and an activist for both, because each movement is rooted in a simple concept: equality for all.

As we celebrate the landmark California Supreme Court decision and the many beautiful unions that it will yield, I was also reminded today of another beautiful union – this one fifty years old.

The union in question was of Mildred and Richard Loving, two Virginia small-town sweethearts who in 1958 found themselves pregnant and decided to wed in neighboring Washington, D.C.

Back in Virginia, five weeks after their wedding the couple found themselves on the receiving end of an unfriendly visit from the local Sheriff’s department because they were in violation of the state’s Racial Integrity Act.

Richard Loving was white; his bride Mildred was black.

The Racial Integrity Act made their marriage – and, for that matter, any marriage between a white person and someone of another race – a felony.

This post isn’t meant to be a history lesson- you can read other sources detailing the Loving’s arrest, or their subsequent exodus from Virginia under threat of imprisonment, and how – nine years later on June 12, 1967 – the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the Racial Integrity Act in their landmark Loving v. Virginia decision.

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I know most people (maybe even you, reading now) see the Lovings’ story in black and white – literally and figuratively. However, laws like the Racial Integrity Act were leveraged against couples of any interracial combination across the country. If it weren’t for the Loving’s and the unanimous SCOTUS decision their case garnered, interracial marriages might never have become as visible and accepted in mainstream American society. (And, similar laws lingered on the books for decades until the last one was repealed in Alabama in 2000.)

If those same laws were prevalent today it might not be legal for me to marry Elise. And, it certainly would have been illegal for her parents – one white, the other Chinese – to marry and have children.

Consider that for a moment.

All of these years I’ve been one blessed white male in the multi-ethnic sea of America. I never experienced any personal discrimination to cause me to believe in feminism or civil rights, but I believe in them because equality should be for everyone, without strings attached.

Little did I know at age five, or age twelve, or age twenty-two that my blessed life would benefit from the battles waged before me in the most meaningful way possible – because they cleared the way for me to have and hold the love of my life.

Could you imagine denying us legal recognition of our happiness just for something as trivial as the colors of our skin?

Your answer, I suspect, is “no.”

Then, consider that as of today one of my co-best-ladies and one of my dearest friends can only legally marry each other in two states in the country, solely because they are both women.

Why is it that we can all imagine denying them legal recognition of their happiness just for something as trivial as their gender?

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In my mind, the two are the same – the two couples, the two imagined denials, and the two inevitable, ineffable sets of basic human rights.

Just as I advocated for those rights before I ever knew they would effect my life so directly, I will continue to advocate for them even after my marriage is legally recognized – because everyone should have the same rights as Elise and I, regardless of race or gender.

That’s feminism. That’s civil rights. That’s equality.

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As I write this post there is a tiny dent in the dish of cat food we put out in the yard, hoping to lure back momma and her four stray kittens.

And, at the same time thousands of Californians have had the imagined denials cleared from their path to a legally recognized life of loving.

A Personal Wedding (Or: The only feminist in the party is the one without breasts.)

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Last week I spent my sole lunch break shopping for dresses.

This is one of the many peculiarities of our impending ulta-modern, decidedly-feminist nuptials.

For those keeping score: Elise is the modern one; I’m the feminist.

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At our engagement party I found myself standing in our kitchen next to my father’s wife, chatting about our (then vague) plans about the wedding. She asked me who my best man would be, and I snagged Gina out of the roiling crowd.

I mean, hello, who else would be my best man but Gina? I’ve known her for half of my life. I’m in a band with her. We’ve only been in one fight, ever, which was neither of our faults. We are adept at psychic communication.

These are all traits one seeks in a best man. She really is the best man for the job.

(In this next bit I am maybe engaging in a slight blog-reality edit, but this is how I remember it. Or at least it’s how the story is best told.)

Dad’s wife laughed. Yes, yes, Gina is my best friend. But, does she have a “counterpart”? Another “good friend” of mine fitting the “best man” moniker?

Additional “scare quotes” trailed after her sentence, hanging expectantly in the air.

I replied that I had a great friend that I talk to every single day, who coddled me through my engagement cold feet, helped me design my ring, and even came early to help us set up for the party.

Her name is Lindsay.

The laugh this time was more pointed.

“Don’t you have any male friends?”

I do have male friends, and I love them dearly, but if anyone took an objective look at my life it would be clear to them that my best friends are all women, and since I’m marrying one of them it stands to reason that the next few on the list ought to be the ones at my side on the big day.

Thus, Gina and Lindsay are my “co-best ladies.” CBLs, for short. With the addition of Erika, the girls outnumber the boys in my party three to two.

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As we get farther into the wedding planning – and as we attend more weddings – I’m starting to appreciate how weddings can be both completely vicarious and intensely personal.

Except, a lot of people don’t leave room for the personal. And, I suppose kowtowing to tradition, or family, or current trends can be deeply personal for a lot of people, but for us none of the three really matches our personality.

Which means I have CBLs. And we’re not having flowers, because we don’t care and they aren’t budgetarily or environmentally responsible. And we’re making our own print collateral – not to save money, but because we both work in communications and we want to have control over the look and feel of our wedding.

Through the process of discovering these personal touches, I am gaining a new appreciation for weddings. In 2006 we attended a barbecue wedding with pies instead of cake. Last month we went to a wedding where the father/daughter dance was the Action News theme song.

Those are personal touches, perfect for their respective couples. Anyone who would turn their noses up at them would be insane.

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Maybe most men don’t want to spend their lunch breaks looking at dresses – for them it would be less of a personal touch, and more of a personal hell. I can appreciate that. But to me everything from our CBLs to our DIY invites are the defining facets of our modern, feminist wedding. As the feminist half of that equation, for me it’s not just about axing antiquated “Adam’s rib” readings and sexist, sexual bachelor parties.

Feminism isn’t just about the female – it’s about equality in words and actions.

That means that I can and should have an opinion on dresses, and décor, and everything else about my wedding. A wedding marks the joining of our anima and animus, neither of us giving away or sacrificing anything of ourselves in the process. How can that joining be equal if the groom does nothing but say yes and write checks?

And, besides, my CBLs are going to look stunning.