Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

isolation

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I’m having trouble deciding what i feel about anything except for sitting holed up in my room protected by womb of thick walls and loud music. Yesterday on my way home from class i walked a block out my way – out of boredom, i guess. I had never been on it on foot before, just in a car passing by. The feeling was indescribable, as if i had stepped off of my front porch and onto the set of a television show (because i had never seen that block before except for through the glass of a window/screen).

I think that sometimes Elise feels bad that i don’t write so many songs anymore, as if it’s her fault. It guess it is a little bit, because i am happy and not creating stupid scenarios in my head to connect me to every person that i pass by on the street out of utter desperation to be a part of someone else’s day. It’s confusing to look at the entries in my little grey book from a year ago, while Elise was still new and confusing enough to evoke my typical lyrical ramblings. At a point not too far after that there is a disconnect, and suddenly i am not writing out of my gut anymore, from where my songs used to spring covered in bile and blood. Every time Elise gets used to me not having anything new to sing at all i surprise her, the other night with four new songs that she had never even heard a hint of before. They make me uneasy — i have trouble feeling them and so they are hard to sing.

I have thirty four weeks of college left after i complete my last co-operative learning experience this summer. I said a funny thing last night to Erika about that. I said that i wasn’t returning my mother’s phone calls because she would have to get used to not hearing from me and being worried once i left Philadelphia. I talk a lot about what i may or may not do after i graduate, everything from going abroad to going to grad school, and usually it has an air of fantasy and speculation about it. Last night, though, i said it without thinking. It felt like singing one of my old songs, half diaphragmatic support and half a punch in the gut. I don’t know where i’m going to go, or what i’m going to do, but apparently it’s not going to be here.


Or so i say. But, for as many streets there are in this city that can make me feel alien there are other cities on this planet that i’ll never see. I really ought to start working on that.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/03/90595788/

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How much do you need people?



This time last year i would have said that i didn’t need them at all. Just healed from the immediate wounds of a messy breakup, totally alienated from all of my theatre friends, and actively looking to sublet over the summer rather than stay in my cramped one room apartment. In those moments, i would have told you that i hardly needed anyone except for myself.


I would have been right … at the time. At the time i was so wrapped up in my own personal mythology that i didn’t have time to relate it back to more than one or two other people. I was fine – not at my happiest, but fine. But, in the year between then and now, everything changed. People who i didn’t see more than a handful of times a month are now my most reliable friends. I hadn’t even seen the three people i am most inclined to tell my secrets to once last June. I am in love with someone who i hadn’t even contemplated at the time. And, equally inexplicably, i am happy. Really fucking happy.

The only problem is that with these people there comes responsibilities. I have to find the time to see them, I have to keep their secrets, i have be there for them. And, i cannot burn the bridges i’ve built to them as carelessly as i blazed similar paths this time last year. I’ve gained stability but at the price of disposablity, and now that i’m standing up so strongly i’m loathe to sacrifice any of the balance they’ve provided.

Bleh, some people get cigarette breaks, i get blog breaks. Back to work.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/06/85197727/

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I am not a big fan of surgical procedures, but anesthesia definitely excites me. It excites me because, unlike the illegal drugs that any college student is bound to be offered, it does something that your body already does nearly every day – and it does it better. I am of the firm believe that nearly all ‘drugs’ emulate a natural perception or function that your body can achieve in the short term, whether or not chemistry supports my theory. Anesthesia is something entirely different though, pulling the a shade down on your consciousness in the blink of an eye and leaving you in a deep slumber that you are helpless to arise from.


I’ve only been under twice and both times when i was instructed to count backwards from ninety-nine i did so with quiet excitement – knowing that modern medicine was about to work its magic on me. I think that’s what keeps me from getting to unnerved by whatever they’ll do to me while i’m asleep; i am fascinated by my unscheduled nap, the utter blackness that exists without turning over or being bothered by noise. It’s peaceful.


Today at my appointment the doctor began to go through a litany of warnings about the inherent dangers of being put under, a speech during which my mother usually can be found nervously clenching and unclenching her fists. She wasn’t invited to this appointment though; she went down the shore instead. As the litany moved on to postoperative dangers i remained calm, just thinking about the unfailing quiet that awaits me in twelve short days.


The doctor was impressed by my lack of nerves as she spoke of bleeding out, i think.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/05/85112403/

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Sometimes it is just there in the pit of your stomach, bubbling under. Each little phrase and laugh is a dig at you, winging across the room to impact like a punch to the solar plexus and, while everyone else has their head thrown back with laughter, you are just slowly reaching your break point. You are trying not to boil over, but there is always that one irrelevant thing that someone says that is the coup de grace — the blow you cannot recover from.

They had been verbally working me over for an hour and i don’t even think they realized it, even after i left. My food had stuck in my throat for a second, and i could feel myself turning a little red, and then i wasn’t in control of it anymore. Boiling over. Screaming, cursing, slamming, until i was out of there and down Walnut Street and back in my room. I wasn’t in control of it; my body entered some sort of social fight-or-flight reflex on my behalf. Some quick words to the roommates, and then i was up the stairs and locking the door, and on my bed i was mouthing over and over “i can’t change anything, i can’t change anything.” And i know that i can’t. I know that i am two decades into this and that i set myself up for this fall for my entire life, but it doesn’t making the landing any easier.

I knew it couldn’t possibly work twice in a row.

Last night i was miserable and so i went out. It was a good idea; sitting around and moping wasn’t going to fix anything. Tonight i had the same impulse, but although it was well-intentioned of me i think that i realistically should have realized that it was time for a recharge Because, if i don’t take time to recenter every so often i manage to let people see through to what’s underneath. And, that never works out too well.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9324213/

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The feelings i have are these slippery things, and i wish they were more like velcro. I wish i could throw words at them and have them stick. I feel… slighted, continuously slighted by life despite my attempts to make it worthwhile. I feel unappreciated for being someone i enjoy being and over-valued for things i despise. And, of course, alone on a Sunday night my immediate reaction is to try to write a song about how i feel and, failing that, to blog about it.


The thing is, i’ve written this song already and blogged about it a hundred times. Yesterday Lindsay and i had a ridiculously deep conversation while watching the Eagles game, and i said something about getting married and having children and a house, and i meant it. But, i can never have any of that so long as i live within this private universe i’ve constructed, with all of its own symbolism and meaning.


I’m usually not shy with my lyrics, but this week i wrote something that says how i feel and i purposefully tucked it away. It Says how i Feel, but i can’t sing it or play it because for it to really come out and do justice to all the slippery feelings i have inside i need to make it perfect. In my head i hear the sighing melody and the double bass beat on the chords in the chorus, but try as i may i can’t get even a line of it to come out like that at all. Anyway, i don’t know what to say about this feeling other than what i already said in these lyrics last week, so here’s the latter half of them:

Imagine my whole life as Technicolor — with someone painting the shades into the scenes, and everyone acting from scripts with each other. They’re all off-book except for me, so every day is a stumble-through rehearsal, and each night is an actors’ worst dream because i never know the right thing to say, and i’m left silent in the spaces in-between. So, my front porch is a consolation, my door is a sigh of relief. The stairs are invigorating, my room is a reprieve. It’s then that i open my mouth, and the room is filled — the words come pouring out. My guts are spilled. It’s a shame i can only find my voice between four lonely walls of brick and concrete, but i don’t really have any choice: it’s just something about emptiness and me. Outside i feel just slightly out of focus; around other people i sing a little off-key. I wonder all the time if anyone will notice that i seem to be coming apart at the seams. I am coming apart at the seams.

It’s a one-dimensional representation of what i’m trying to say… my words stripped of inflection and tone. But, it’s the closest i can come to opening this up to you, so take it for what it is.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/01/8889949/