Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Personal

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So i found myself sitting across a long table from Mr. David Someone who was at NYU when it was just a little hole in The Village’s wall, and he was telling our counselors how to do things. At first it seemed rather dashing and exciting and fun, but then when the counselors started to ask questions about if NYU does personal interviews and personal tours and handwritten envelopes from counselors suddenly all of the happy smiling applicants turned into sheep either being lead to the slaughter or the shears. And and and, and finally we got around to how financial aid works, and he said that SAT scores and family income have a perfect positive slope on his graph and so selective schools don’t have to worry too much about throwing excessive amounts of aid around. Because, if a student without too much money and merely above average grades manages to get in they will find a way to make up the difference if the school really matters to them.

And then, and then …. his favourite phrase came out. “Remember, you aren’t judged by who you accept, you’re judged by who you reject.” And, yes, i know we were talking about the college admissions process and about how NYU only has to accept 25% of each application pool to fill all of their seats, but it was like he was staring right at me from across the table saying that they are who they are because i got a big fat NO in the mail from them April 4th, 1999.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/08/5119645/

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Today the former director of admissions at New York University was here at Drexel to talk to our admissions staff about our potential for growth in the coming year, and somehow i got myself into the meeting with him because i said i thought it would be “educational” (for all of the obvious reason, and since NYU was one of my top choice schools). So, i volunteered to take minutes and wound up choking down metaphorical bile through the entire chat.

You have to understand that when i say that NYU was one of my top choice schools that i really had no top choice. I was totally unprepared for college. I had no idea what i wanted to be save for that i didn’t really want to take any more calculus, and i thought that i was being savvy and intelligent when i said i had my school search narrowed down to cities that reminded me of Philadelphia. I knew nothing, and had no battle plan, and didn’t know how i was going to pay for college, and i could be accused of being silly and naive but i had honestly been convinced by Masterman that i just had to pick a school and apply and my SAT score and our reputation would step up and do the trick.

Of course, having worked in Admissions for a half a year now, i see how this was both true and false. If i had been told to target smaller sized colleges that were on the upper half of the second tier of acceptance rates, i would’ve done amazingly well. Those schools gobble up SAT scores like mine and are left wanting more. They love AP-inflated GPAs. They love over-involvement in extra-curricular activities. However, no one told me that, and so it was just my mother and i all alone against the admissions process.

My first four choices were Brown, NYU, Penn, BU. No one saw fit to tell me that even our top ten students wouldn’t necessarily be able to make a clean sweep on acceptance letters from those institutions, and one way or another none of those stories ended happily. APs don’t mean too much when over 70% of your entering class has them. Good SAT’s pale in comparison to a perfect 800. A single parent working as a nurse with no savings doesn’t buy you too far into a class of intelligencia and society that you never even met before let alone associated with.

And, so, i didn’t go Ivy, or even “little ivy.” Somehow, almost by coincidence, i came to Drexel. And i love it and the people are perfect and i still regret the fact that i’m here because i didn’t do all of my homework like i should have (on so many different levels).

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/08/5119628/

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Last night i went to bed with my creaky windows propped open by hangers wearing only my first pair of jeans restyled as cutoffs with piano drifting past like a breeze. At some point much later Matt came home and out of habit turned on the air conditioner to go to bed, and so i woke up freezing and sniffling from being so naked to the cold and because pollen had crept up through my window to strangle me. But, i could hear the outdoors for the first time since we shoved the drippy machine into the window, and the sounds of neighbors chuckling and saxophone pouring note by each note from the windows of the house across the street was much better than the electric holler of my alarm clock.

I feel a bit hung over, but in fact i am just water-logged from last night. This makes me suspect that being hung over is more about being too hydrated… like the liquor is hiding out somewhere beneath my cheekbones and i am heavier than it so it is trying to float up past my eyes and brain. That would at least explain that same dull pressure i’m feeling right now behind my face and below my temples … same difference. Or, it feels like the same difference, anyway.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/08/5104265/

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After work and dinner and rehearsal we all went out into a pseudo-suburb of Philly to swim in Howard’s pool. For a while we ran around its circumference in endless counter-clockwise circles to create a current, and then it carried us along on our own. The entire situation was weird because it was all in cliques and i wasn’t in any of them … the girls lead by my bitchy co-star, and the two couples, and the two endlessly warring factions, and any way you sliced it i was certain to be the odd one out of any battle or conversation. But, it was fun nonetheless… there’s something to be said for swimming in the dark with some of your most entertaining friends and the way my laugh carries for what seems like miles and miles because everything there is so flat. Afterwards i pulled on my cutoffs, which are technically my first ever pair of jeans, and marveled at the fact that i still fit in them, and at all of the legends this flesh has amassed in the intervening 6 years. And at that i still have nearly the same waist as i did before highschool. And that i do and see any of this day to day.

But, now my entire block is silently shut off save for the refrigerator staring at me from my neighbors window across the street, and swimming always leaves me feeling warm and breathless. No artificial air tonight … i’ll sleep just with what’s out there to begin with.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/08/5098575/

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I might not always return link love in an equal fashion, but when i am paid a true complement i honestly appreciate it and back-linking is the least i can do. In that vein, please visit Handbasket Emporium, where some sentences feature both myself and Nick Hornby (and, not just sentences saying that i want to grow up to be one of his characters, either).

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/08/5098432/