Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

thoughts

you’ll get older too

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This morning I drove the farthest I’ve driven by myself to go to a viewing by myself for the first time.

I don’t know how to do these things. Well, the driving, I suppose I remedially know how to do that. But a viewing? I don’t know.

I dressed how I thought I should dress and wore a white shirt, which I never wear, and I smiled wanly and kept my hands clasped. As the line neared the family I wondered, am I supposed to cry? I felt the valve of tears loosen behind my eyes. I had cried at work when I found out, just for a moment. Then it was too late, and I was crying, and what do you say when you’re the one crying about someone you’ve never met before and the family is hugging you? I don’t know. It’s sad for everyone there, but you’re all there together.

I guess that’s the point.

Now I am seated in bro’s college apartment, talking about the best daytime mixed drinks and the hour it is most appropriate to begin drinking them.

I always think of bro as my slightly-younger peer, but his roommates seem impossibly young. Were Erika and Lindsay this young when we moved in together? I don’t know. Maybe because we were all only children we all grew up as tiny adults, so when we moved in together we were adults, only smaller.

Now I am seated at their kitchen table and I am that old guy, with his laptop and his car keys, whisking bro away for a day of family time.

But I know this context. It feels familiar. I could day drink with them all day. Or, at least, I have. I don’t know if I could any more.

The girls are making apple sauce at the counter. We’re headed outside. Guitar shopping. Another context where I never know who I am.

I wish there were more rules, but then I remember I don’t like rules. I’ll just be me. That should work.

30 for 30 Project: we’ll be right back!

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My 30 for 30 Project of video cover songs from each year of my life resumes tomorrow! I’ve been holed up in the studio all day working on songs, and I can say without exaggeration that this week will feature some of my favorite songs and most unusual performances – ever. For example…

Come on, just try to tell me you aren’t wondering what that ridiculousness is about.

Point your browser at me tomorrow afternoon at 12:30 ET to see what I have in store from 1988.

sounding off

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This is the first time all month I truly don’t feel like blogging. Between the acts of god and the blogiversary I am tapped out, dudes.

Chez Krisis escaped Irene with only the aforementioned broken screen door as evidence of the storm. Goes to show that all that wackiness E put us through with the several tons of dirt and subsequent weeks of hard physical labor paid off, as there was hardly even a trickle in our previously-damp basement.

I cannot believe that there are people whinging about Irene over-hype in the media. I hate local news just as much (okay: five times more) as the next person, but this was warranted. Overhyping a snow storm is one thing – it’s snow. We’re all gonna live through it and probably have a lot of fun getting bombed and using trash can lids as sleds.

Hurricanes are something else entirely. There is no fun aspect, and as a city used to “fun” apocalyptic weather patterns we needed a bracing dose of reality to make sure we’d be prepared for any eventuality. I know I personally ignore all local weather news, but at the point that the National Weather Service thinks it might be dire I pay attention and prepare.

(Did you know they are the ones largely credited for spurring passive communities into action during Katrina prep? Did you know you can input your zip code into NWS’s site Weather.gov at any time to see all the weather warnings for your area? If you hear any politician say something negative about this service, it is a sign they are a total moron.)

Did it hurt to get extra groceries and gas, clean up the stray stuff around our house, and check various batteries. Totally not, so no complaints here. Well, maybe I could have done without eating an entire loaf of Parmesan Pesto bread in the last 24-hours, but as my friend Sarah pointed out, I was simply carb-loading in preparation for feats of athletic exertion during the storm.

And, well, now I’m ready to hibernate and live off my own body fat, which I guess could have come in handy, too.

kismet, or something

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There are some days that are just kismet, or something similarly serendipitous.

Last night was Filmstar rehearsal. I’m learning now that band rehearsals ebb and flow. For months you are learning new songs and battling new riffs, and then suddenly you realize you’ve arrived and want to work on something new.

I got there halfway through rehearsal last night, after powering through a particularly strong version of “Promise Me, Promise Me.” I think it is giving me arthritis, actually. The gradual decay of my aging husk aside, it was a good rehearsal. Good enough that I asked when we’d be learning another new song.

The space between rehearsal and bed is slim, if I want to possess even a modicum of sanity the next day. A few minutes prior to exhaustion overtaking me, I checked my blinking phone to discover we had the chance to play the Tin Angel the week of my birthday. I fired away some emails and nodded off, bedside light still on.

Today I woke up too early and thought, Oh, to hell with going back to sleep. I got to the office before anyone else and started my day in peace.

A few hours and several dozen emails into the now-broken peace, I noticed my phone blinking. It was David, who books local shows at the Tin; we were in for September 24th.

I didn’t have time to celebrate. Instead, I put out some fires, did crazy Batman-esque calisthenics with my personal trainer, and delivered a 90-minute long presentation complete with a little 5.5″ x 8.5″ instruction booklet I composed for the occasion.

(Actually, if you know me, that probably did constitute a celebration. Few things make me happier than crises, superheroes, print collateral, and public speaking.)

Eventually I wound up at home, after nearly missing my trolley stop as I nodded off to The Format crooning in my ear. E and I sat on the couch.

“Are you writing your anniversary post yet?”

“No.”

“Shouldn’t you?”

“I feel like playing guitar.”

Having long since given up on serving as a traffic cop to my creative whims, E noodled on her iPad while I strummed. I could tell that she could tell that I was working out something new. She stayed silent but set a curious eye on my over the edge of her iPad.

I hummed a little. I found where two different chord progressions connected. I picked a starting pitch.

I played the new song, rather coherently, with a few stops and starts to fit the uneven lyrics into the chords.

E has seen me birth many a song since we moved in together in 2004. The process doesn’t typical elicit a comment until I fish for one.

I played it again and she fixed me with a look over top of her iPad.

“New?”

“Yeah. Just now, actually.”

She waited, just long enough that I almost had to ask.

“It’s a good one.”

“Does it work?”

She laughed her little non-laugh that she laughs.

“Yeah. Really. Really.”

She gave a satisfied smirk. Later, she asked me, “Do you want to go out for water ice?”

I nodded back at her.

“Just let me play it once more.”

I played it twice.

I am exhausted in bed, again, with bleary eyes and sore muscles, but a new song and a belly full of water ice for my trouble.

I’ll take it.

all points of the compass

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Yesterday I took one of those personality type assessments that you frequently take at work, and for once I thought it told me something useful.

The assessment suggested our personalities are divided between four predominant focuses – clearing obstacles in the present, having a vision of the future state, caring about people and their skills, and collecting and analyzing data.

Some people were clearly one thing. I was sitting next to a warrior, who only cared about crossing things off his list, and across from a nurturer, who only cared about the people around her.

Unsurprisingly, I do not have a singular focus.

However, I was the only person in a room of two dozen who was primarily focused on the next steps. I’m a planner. I want to know how present actions will be reflected in the future.

I wasn’t only that. Right behind it was my path-clearing tendency – I consider what we can do now to get to those next steps, as well as my analysis-OCD –  gathering information and data to get to those next steps.

You’ll notice a missing element: people. It turns out, in this particular rubric I’m supposedly not too concerned with others.

If there was any doubt in my mind about the validity of that assessment, you don’t have to look much farther than Arcati Crisis rehearsal. I’m always pushing to learn more songs so we can play longer sets, record video to add to our web content, add more harmony to make our songs more complex, or any number of other things that will transform us. I am fixated on the future state.

I want to get those things done, and I have my data to support why we’re doing them (in the form of song binders, spreadsheets, rehearsal videos, etc).

What I don’t do is ask, “Are you having fun?” It just doesn’t come into the equation for me. I’m having fun if the song sounded good. When the songs don’t sound good I’m not having fun. If that happened all the time I wouldn’t show up. I assume that about everyone else.  And – whether they share my dogmatic future-focus or not – it’s true.

This week, the songs sounded great. I think we were all pretty happy.

It’s not that I don’t care about others. It’s that I assume that being on a team indicates interest, and the best thing I can do to keep you interested is to always be moving towards the next step in our evolution – which means doing great work in the present.

For being a band-leader, I think my personality fits me to a tee.