Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

adulthood

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Fuck editing.

Drexel University has disappointed me more than a couple of times during my three and a half years here. Bad scheduling, botched financial aid, boring classes. But, for once, just once, they have come through for me. In this round of co-op interviews i was offered not one, but two jobs. Two. Both of them at major companies around the country and specifically in Philadelphia, both in Communications, and both very well paid. For once i am faced with the opposite of my typical Drexel decision; instead of trying to make the best of something i don’t like, i am faced with trying to discern what the best is between two excellent choices.


I haven’t got a clue, and i need to find one by Tuesday morning.

And, meanwhile, i’m sure you’re thinking “Yo, Peter, what happened to all that ‘i’ll be less busy next term’ crap? Where the hell have you been?’ Well, it’s a damned good question. I’ve been stage managing The Vagina Monologues. But, no, not just stage managing. Scheduling. Promoting. Publishing. Just about everything i could possibly do up through this point short of acting or directing. And, it doesn’t go up for another three weeks.

Anyhow, i’ll have more to say about that soon. There is something to this Winter, the verging on adulthood that is almost tangible. I’m not alone in this feeling, but i still feel alone in the sheer lust i have. I want everything. I want rock star, and i want business man… i want travel, i want home, i want love, i want happiness, i want maturity. I need more of everything; i need more time. The one thing i can say for Drexel is that it’s five-year program creates an illusion at once grand and awful… allowing you to put off the real world for that much longer but just making you want it that. much. more. badly.


I want all that and i’m sitting at my computer in my fucking jeans and a tee-shirt, listening to myself play guitar. I want it all and, as i’ve just found out, if i were to get it all i wouldn’t know what to do with it at all.

I think this calls for a drink.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/01/90206744/

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September and I have never really been entirely comfortable with each other, with its end of summer, start of school, and an inevitable new birthday on which i am expected to celebrate but typically just ponder. Even worse, for the last three years i have left a home every September: in 1998 from my childhood home to my mother’s current house, in 1999 from that house to the dormitories at Drexel, in 2000 from the dormitories to my first apartment, and last year from that apartment to the one i currently share with Erika, Lindsay, Kate, and Karen. September brings in change and the beginnings of golden leaves and cooler weather, and when it is over i hardly ever know what to make of it.

And, now, in my twenty-first go through the month, somehow it has contrived to change itself. Summer never really existed for me, so it cannot end. School has ceased to be a surprise. My birthday looks as though it might be the first time i celebrate the entire day with people who i’d actually choose to spend it with. And, i am staying in the same room of our apartment for another year.


I feel as though i can dig deeper or say more, but it just comes down to this: Change happens, and sometimes changing is just staying the same. I’m just not sure how i feel about it.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/09/85413360/

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Waking up early reminds me of my old homes and of high school. How i used to be so sleepy that i couldn’t imagine moving, let alone showering or eating or walking to the car, but i knew that i didn’t have a choice. Being the first student into my high school at 6:59 just as they turned off our industrial strength alarm, and wandering the empty halls up to my homeroom where i would lay my head against the cool black surface of my lab table and drift off until other people began to drift in a half hour later.

Being adult about something is so jarring, so unusual. I make a decision that i know doesn’t make me happy, but it makes sense, and i wonder how i ever learned to do that. This morning at twenty to seven i could’ve just turned the lock on my door and went back to bed – ignoring the imminent calls of Lindsay and Kate for me to join the early edition of our car pool. I wanted to sleep another hour. I want to sleep another hour right now. But i didn’t, and i’m still not; i am here at work marveling that i am getting anything done despite the cobwebbed haze of sleep that is still shrouding my consciousness hours later.

There’s something about responsibility. There is something about appreciating it more, and also something about knowing what’s important. But, i sometimes still forget to differentiate between things that are important to do and things that are important to me.

In other news, i defragmented my hard drive, devirginized my new blender, and bought two really sexy shirts for $20 at the newly (and inexplicably) renamed Express For Men. How Have You Been?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/08/85322298/

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And, boy, let me tell you, if you ever really need to get motivated you should go hang out with your mother for a week during which you can’t go outside, can’t eat, can’t use the internet for anything other than checking email (without much replying), can’t work, and don’t have any money. Within 24 hours of your escape you’ll have taken two walks, cooked breakfast, blogged, caught up on email, set up interviews for two new jobs, and balanced your check book. Sure, all of this motivation could be connected to the fact that my other option is to sit downstairs with a roommate who is coughing her lungs out just to see if my newly reimagined throat can resist the evil lure of virii and bacteria, but that doesn’t mean i’m not enjoying the concept of being organized for the first time ever in my adult life.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/06/85160822/

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I don’t know that it’s an idea, so much as simply how my body tends to balance itself out. Left to my own devices during the summer of 2000 i actually split each day in half, sleeping from five to nine in both the morning and evening. This sounds ridiculous, but given a healthy and active list daily schedule it actually suited my needs perfectly and kept me highly energized through my grueling turn as an Orientation Leader.

Of course, there are problems with giving the body exactly what it seems to be asking for. With the exception of my magical two weeks of two-in-one days, my body tends to operate on a clock that is much nearer to 30hour days than 24hour ones, which means if i don’t have a set time to sleep i’ll stay up a handful of hours later every night until finally i’m sleeping the day away because i’m so locked in to my overly long internal clock. Furthermore, my attempts to correct my own sleeping habits tend to make the situation worse; for example, i should have never gone back to sleep this morning rather than do my best to stay awake all day — and here i am blogging about it past 2am.

The solution that has had a larger impact on my days than my quirky sleeping habits (which are endlessly remarked upon in derisive fashion by my roommates) is that i really just don’t waste time anymore. Sure, you could argue that i’m wasting time right now, but i mean something closer to not spending time idly. If i’m on the internet, i’m either writing or catching up on my daily reading … not aimlessly wandering from link to link. If i’m playing guitar i’m either writing or practicing … no idle ad-libbing for hours on end. I tend to break this rule just as much as i follow it, but keeping the idea of maximizing my resources stuck in the back of my head somehow netted me all A’s last semester — something i’ve never accomplished with such a rigorous course load Sure, it involved putting some thing off until the last minute (and stressing my way into the hospital), but somewhere along the way i finally learned to cut down on time-wasting (and unsatisfying) activities like reorganizing my cd collection and rereading my archives when i could be cooking dinner or writing a paper instead..


This semester has an even more ridiculous free-time to work-time ratio than last, and so i’m interested to see how i fare. Also, it would be nice if i could factor actually working into the equation somewhere between sleep and cd reviews, because money is never as evil as they say it is ;)

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/01/8505261/