After a year and a half of sitting on my ass doing absolutely nothing to aid you in your exploration of archived Trios, i have finally updated archive. It’s probably ugly and semi-functional right now. Don’t hate me.
by krisis
meta
There are a certain number of Freshmen who come to the Admissions office on the first day of class every fall, each armed with a question. They don’t know who to go to about their bill. They can’t figure out where their Dean is located. They haven’t seen Curtis Hall anywhere on campus and have class there in two minutes. In short, they’re lost.
They are lost, and they think we’ll know where they should be and that we will tell them without making too much of a fuss about how woefully uninformed they are as they enter this very important stage of their life. They’re right, of course, as this is without a doubt the friendliest and best equipped office within the entire University with the possible exclusion of the counseling center. However, i don’t necessarily credit their arrival solely to such a basic assumption.
We sent them an application or a catalog, maybe as long as two years ago. They’ve talked on the phone to their counselor here, and maybe even made it in for a visit. When they got their triple-thick acceptance envelope in the mail, it was our return address that was emblazoned on all of the letterhead within. We brought them here, and given the choice of desk staff or resident assistants or their friends or anything else they routinely wander into our office with the first of the many difficulties they’ll be faced with.
I feel a little like that about this page. It has opened up my writing, my music, and my life to avenues that i hadn’t even previously contemplated. It has also eaten my time, caused balled up fists and angry words, and has drawn an indifferent sigh of resignation on more than one occasion.
I am past my first problems, those things we are asked once every fall here in the office. I used to come here with all of my difficulties: with my degree program, with theatre, with singing, with the opposite sex, and with myself. But, slowly, all of these problems have resolved themselves into much more complex honeycombs of issues – interconnected, maze-like, and sticky. And, for lack of anything so easy to complain about as a class i can’t get into or a girl that doesn’t seem to notice my existence, I seem to have given up on writing anything.
What a very few of the freshmen ever seem to realize is that they can come back to our office more than once. Diane will still know the answer to their questions. Maggie will still smile and fawn over them. The counselors will still fight for them the same way they fought to make sure they enrolled here to begin with. I was lucky enough to find this out more than a year after my first timid askance of the location of Curtis Hall, and whenever i really need an ear of someone who is impartial to my problem but willing to help me however they possibly can i still come here.
And here. So, welcome back.
I did not prepare a speech.
Today we overslept for work. Every time one of us stirred enough to wake the other she would ask “It’s not too late to go in yet, is it?” Not waiting for an answer, she would hit snooze again.
I couldn’t tell you the last Monday that i actually made it in to work. Hours later we drove to the mall, ostensibly to shop for gifts but really just to buy a quart of Ben & Jerry’s. It almost melted on the way home, balanced on my knee in front of the air conditioning vent. As she was putting it in the freezer i think she was talking to me, but i wandered upstairs and into bed. When she found me i looked right at her, and then closed my eyes and said, “Just for a minute, i’m so tired.”
Now it’s almost midnight, and i’m trying to think of what to say.
I originally intended this page to be a scratch-pad, with no edits and no regrets. Quickly it turned into an almost constant running commentary, with no room for reflection. Later it became a catchall… recording all of my feelings for when i might need to remember them again. This year it has been a diary, the place where i run to when i can’t tell anyone else what i am thinking.
I’m not sure what it is now, but somehow it helped to get me to where i am. It has helped me to get happy.
This seems like such a lackluster way to mark the second birthday of this page, but somehow it’s totally apropos; I don’t think a speech is really necessary. Thank you for reading, and happy birthday to this.
https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/08/happy-birthday-to-this-2/
I don’t think i’m ever going to be able to live somewhere where i can’t sit in front of my computer in my underwear at odd hours of the night staring at the internet and trying to think of something to say.
Kate works in an office where she occasionally has a few minutes to burn between projects, and ever since the blogathon she’s been filling all of those moments with a big heaping serving of Krisis. Seeing as i live with Kate and hang out with her on a day-to-day basis, she is definitely the regular reader most entangled in the actual living i’m doing short of Elise. After skimming for entries about her and then reading some random highlights, today she apparently resolved to read me all the way through, from day one on. I warned her that day one was about as long as June 2002, and she replied with a knowing smirk.
I’ve followed Kate’s lead and delved into some CK written from the old apartment, and it’s downright odd. I don’t remember writing like i did then – in constant fits and starts, or even thinking like that. Now every single post either sends me into a fit of laughter or a state of quiet contemplation, and sometimes both consecutively. And, though i’m sure it’s very amusing and thought-provoking on its own (heh), the highlights for me definitely connect to having been there when they were written… remembering how many times i fell to the ground in a fit of hysterical laughter on this night of drinking with Aim, laughing out loud at the nearly psychic advice doled out in this post, and remembering to read the commented out dream in this one, which i easily recollected almost blow for blow.
As much as i love making other people think, or laugh, or sing along, i think the best part of this is often just looking back and seeing exactly what i was like on a certain day nearly two years ago. It’s truly worth the effort.