Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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Taking Back Giving Thanks

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I don’t enjoy celebrating most holidays. They aren’t really holidays anymore – just treacly Hallmark imitations of the celebrations they once were.

Part of my resistance is societal – a rebellion against Hallmark and Christmas radio stations – but part of it is familial. As children we are subjected to the whims of our family’s traditions with little room for our own opinions. When i hit college i decided i’d start having things my way – i rebuilt my holiday schedule from scratch.

I usually deign to observe a standard July 4th, since it holds historical significance, and Cinco de Mayo, since it kicks off my Corona-drinking season, but everything else is fair game; one particularly defiant year I celebrated Passover instead of Easter.

However, I haven’t fucked with any holiday as much as today’s – Thanksgiving – because i didn’t really feel as though i had been giving very much thanks. It had turned into Turkeyhaving and Footballwatching or, worse, LaststopbeforeChristmasing.

Rather than touch any of that, i co-opted it for my own, never doing the same thing twice. Once i carried a balloon in the parade. Another year i dined with Gina and her family and friends. Two years ago i spent Thanksgiving alone, drinking martinis and watching old movies. Each iteration was superior to the alternative of a dead bird and getting stuffed just to get stuffed.

Over the last nearly-five years i have been gradually assimilated into Elise’s family, which dichotomizes every holiday between a split set of parents (a phenomenon with which i am all-too familiar). I am now an expected guest at their holiday celebrations and, as a result, here i am in NJ celebrating a second Thanksgiving in a row for the first time since the nineties.

At first i was reticent – this was exactly what i had been trying to escape! Yet, the view, the culture, the traditions, the food, and the thanks are all different here than what i gew up with. Admittedly, I don’t like them all – i was especially upset to realize that not every family in America accompanies every holiday turkey or ham with lasagna or baked ziti – but in total they have definitely refreshed my thanks… thanks for who i am, and where i am, and that i am free to choose both and everything in between.

I think holidays should be what you need them to be, especially a holiday about thanks. And sometimes the best way to realize why (if at all) you are thankful is change your perspective.

Don’t Play That Song (A Trio of Links)

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You were supposed to receive the second Influences Trio tonight, but it took six hours last night to get one song right, and we are leaving on our T-Day expedition to NJ in a few hours.

This exemplifies why Trio did not typically include cover songs back when it was a weekly feature (and why it started taking so damned long when it did start including cover songs): i’m a huge music fan, and in almost every case i have an obsessive fascination with the original, which leads me to go through this horrific Sophie’s Choice drama about every little flaw and if i can really give them up to the oppressive, fascist listening public.

So, rather than my still-incubating Trio, here’s a trio of quick-hit weblinks for you:

#1 Yeti Ornament from HungerSite. Dude, if we get a tree i am buying this in a hot second.

Plus, it totally jives with the holiday competition i have with my mother about buying farm animals for each other.

#2 PhotoJunkie’s “One Million Giveaway”. No, not a million dollars. PhotoJunkie is a fantastic blogger who was on the forefront of Photoblogging a few scant years ago. I think i know him from Blogathon (?). In any event, to celebrate his upcoming 1,000,000th website hit he’s giving away all sorts of stuff to anyone who comments on or links to his blog.

I should be seeing my millionth hit sometime before i turn 40, thanks for asking.

#3 Want a seasonal job in Philly? Be a newspaper scab! Our two big (collectively owned) papers are heading for strike, and they’re already fishing for temporary staff. $17-$20 an hour, 60hrs a week, minimal experience required. I say, go for it.

In closing, i feel that you should know that i am eating raw cookie-dough for dinner, and that after a content-lite day for T-Give i’ll be closing out NaBloPoMo with several more Trios and more NaBloPoMo site reviews.

Oh, right, and more blogging.

Edit: Every time i see the title of this post i hear the same thing in my head. In the interests of you hearing it too, here it is: Kelly Clarkson singing “Don’t Play That Song” from Season 1 of American Idol.

The Curse of Smart

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I don’t necessarily think of myself as “smart,” but the evidence often points in that direction.

When I was very young I was always bright. Good grades were effortless, and thanks to that over-achievement I attended one of the best public middle- and high schools in the state (and the country).

It was a shock to my system: my peers weren’t just peers in age, but in intelligence. I was no longer the smart one, just a smart one. I increasingly saw myself in the middle of the hyper-intelligent pack figuratively and, in class rank, it became literal.

College was that shock in reverse – i was no longer surrounded by a crowd of smart.

It took some time to adjust to being above-average again. I expected to still commiserate about having a hard time and getting average grades, because that was who I accustomed to being.

In retrospect, as my confidence and ability increased so did my aloofness as a student – i eschewed or altogether ignored classmates in an effort to insulate my ability to be right without feeling guilty. In a way it was like returning to grade school, where I had free reign to wield my smarts with no regrets.

I have been dismayed to learn that in a post-collegiate world the insulation of isolation just doesn’t work; you don’t get anywhere by eschewing possible connections or alienating co-workers with your know-it-allness.

That’s the curse of smart – everyone respects your intelligence until you are a peer or, worse, a competitor, and suddenly “smart” is a derogative term, and you are left scrambling to cover it up.

As a result, I often find myself feigning misunderstanding or painting myself as a little bit bumbling … handicapping my A-Game just to fit in to this so-called “real world,” and living in constant fear that the facade is starting to stick.

Is that the line that separates smart drones from smart successes? Am i supposed to stop caring about people, and start caring about being right?

I guess i’m just not smart enough to understand.

Weird Is Relative

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Last week at work everyone was buzzing about Emmitt Smith winning some sort of television show about dancing.

Since I am totally divorced from the magical land of time-suck known as television I thought they were just putting me on. You have to admit, it does sound improbable, aside from the fact that it’s altogether blasphemous for such salt-of-the-earth Philadelphians to be happy about a former Dallas Cowboy winning anything.

Yet, strange as it all seemed, it was true. My work friends once again took this opportunity to mock me for my self-imposed teevee blackout, as if i had given up using adjectives or basking in the light of the sun.

I wanted to shoot back, “How many concerts have you been to this month? How many have you recorded? And how many blogs (over a thousand) have you read?”


Of course, my weirdness doesn’t end in my eschewing of the boob tube. Another point of endless fascination is that I don’t drive – I don’t even have my license. I’ve had my permit a few times, and am actually flirting with getting it again, but when it comes down to it I’m distrustful of cars, and moreso of the people who drive them.

Still, people always ask, “Why wouldn’t you want to own/drive a car,” and in my head i complete the sentence “…in the city recently named as the second-most expensive in the country to do so?”

Usually my tv blackout wins out against non-driving as weirdest trait, but a competing one is my flirtation with vegetarianism – which is patently ridiculous, as my current state of consumption is incredibly lax in comparison to when I was a rules-obeying vegetarian for my latter teen years.

By comparison, my current rules are so loose i can hardly coin a term for them … lacto-ovo-pesco-broth-o-vegetarian? I’m not trying to make a statement; i just don’t like red meat, and i eat healthier on the whole when I can’t rely on variations on chicken nuggets for every meal.

A few years ago it would have all gotten under my skin, crawling around in my subconscious, making me doubt myself. Now it’s more like, eh, if they tried it they’d understand. Because, all weirdness is relative.

NaBloPoMo Round-Up #6: Just Gs & Hs

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It occurs to me that these massive link posts might seem like interruptions in content to you, the faithful reader.

However, really this is all about you – introducing you to the witty and interesting lives of dozens of other quality bloggers. Because, while i am currently at the pinnacle of my witty-posting trio-recording A-game, all of us faithful CK followers know that might not continue to be the case in December and beyond.

I’m giving you options, faithful reader, for days when not even a martini with a dash of grand marnier can loosen me up enough to post a post or sing a song. So, listen up. [Read more…] about NaBloPoMo Round-Up #6: Just Gs & Hs