Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

cultivation theory

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It’s funny, because we do sorta resemble 90210. Gina, Joey, Justin, Matt, and I (and Ariel just down the street at Penn). We all were friends throughout highschool, and we all unwittingly wound up at the same college. Some characters left the ensemble, and a few new ones joined. Matt fell away from the core cast but then roommate Matt was brought in as a replacement. The plots suddenly stopped just being about the four of us and expanded to include a cast of new characters with new quirks and problems that were never even touched on in highschool. Now Justin has decided to leave the show, and he’s being written out at the end of the season by transferring to another school. I don’t know how we’re ever going to find a replacement for him. And, we had finally signed a girl to play opposite of me who had the right chemistry, but she’s going on hiatus for a few weeks as the end of her plot gets worked out. And, for sweeps week we’re sending the beloved Laurel away to Europe so that all those Neilson bastards will shed a tear. And my character is still as charmed as ever, even after miserably failing half of his classes this semester. Because, some things always stay the same.

90210 had to end eventually, though, even after they managed to bring back some old favourites. It really hurt to see it go for a lot of viewers, because the show kept on evolving but all of the characters stayed the same despite years and years of experience. But, i never really liked that show. I bet the last episode would’ve gotten a tear out of me, though.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/03/2769320/

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After the movie we saw a friend of mine who i haven’t been in school with for over half a decade, though i saw her almost exactly two years ago this week. The last time I saw her was at the sneak-preview day for accepted students at Drexel; i remember that she was fairly sure she’d be attending a different college but she was going to be a journalism major too and we had fun catching up with each other. Later that day i wound up on the lawn of Buckley Green with Gina, Joey, and our old friend Matt. We just sat there and speculated on all the ways college would change our lives. The conversation is etched into my memory indelibly as one of those eerily foreshadowing moments that seem like they were originally found on 90210 on that last episode before they all went to college together.

Here we are two years later. At the movie theatre, when i asked how she was, she told me she had a little girl. She couldn’t find a picture of her to show me. When she asked me what my major was at Drexel i said “Journalism, still,” and she said “That was my major…” I told her to take care of herself and she smiled at me.

People shouldn’t be allowed to have sex while they’re in college. Especially the smart people.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/03/2769069/

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Isn’t it funny that i can’t distinguish between an adventurous year and a low-point in my life? It either speaks to how much i trust my television’s depiction of actual life or of how boring my life has been so far that i can’t imagine me doing anything truly fun and worthwhile like visiting Europe, or traveling cross-country, or joining a rock band. I would feel like a much healthier person if i could separate the two impulses rather than merging them in a twisted soap opera amalgam. How would you suggest i make my life feel lived in? Skydive? Play chicken with Septa buses? Walk around my neighborhood carrying something obviously valuable and brace for mugging? I need something…

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/02/2221271/

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My life weebles and wobbles but it just doesn’t fall down. I can’t explain it. Despite the most awful things happening, they always turn out for the best in the end.

My mother and i were essentially kicked out of our house at the end of my Junior year by the owners because they wanted to sell it. I had lived in that house for all but three years of my life. I refused to leave. My mother wanted to buy a nice little house somewhere verging on suburbia, but there was the small matter of my attending the best highschool in the state, which i would hardly have left just for senior year. In the end i convinced her to rent a house on the verges of South Philly, because i know that when she actually buys a place it should be one she loves, not one she settles for. It was all very depressing at the time, but Senior year wound up being one of the best of my life, despite all the shitty parts. I wound up living within walking distance of Gina and Anastasia, and i could actually take a shopping trip to South Street at my leisure. I had my own room on my own tiny third floor. Our kitchen was nice. I was happy.


Lots of other things have righted themselves over the years to keep my life going at its usual pace. I only got into a local university but they gave me lots of money and inexplicably wound up happy there. I almost didn’t find an apartment (chronicled at length in the first week of the archive) but wound up in a super-cheap and easily accessible one. But, life doesn’t always work out so perfectly. For some people, it doesn’t work out at all. I have too many friends who got into a local university and got zero money who are now unhappy and in debt. I know too many people who had to move home because they didn’t figure out where to live in time for the beginning of the semester. I know too many unhappy people.

Yesterday i confronted the fact that my smile might have finally become used up. For years and years i just glided through my occasional problems with a grin pasted onto my face, because they all got fixed eventually and life moved on. Suddenly i’m starting to realize that not everything fixes itself, and that i don’t know how much good cheer i really have left to get me through the bad spots


Imagine that… i’m 19 and just learning that “happily ever after” only really happens in fairy tales and first-date movies. I’ve never had to confront the possibility before; i always assumed that bad things only happened to people who weren’t thinking positively. Now i’m starting to realize that keeping a smile on my face isn’t the best defense, and that sometimes it cuts as cruelly as any situation i might be unsuspectingly plunged into. But my life is still all-good, and that scares me. No one is continually blessed. The gods only have so much attention to give.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/01/2097862/

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Working at the Coffee Shop is like acting on a teevee show in six-hour increments. While i’m behind the counter all of the problems of school and friends slip away so that all that’s left is the idle banter between myself and my coworkers and customers. In fact, we refer to certain combination of people behind the counter as their own sort of show… Josh and I are the Josh and Pedro Show while Sara and I are some sort of manic comedy act unleashed upon the poor unsuspecting business world. While there, small flirtations i made while away from the shop turn into full-blown plot elements so much that they bare no relationship to my actually life and instead seem like some sort of soap-opera script. And all of the problems i encounter at the shop? They fade away by the time i step onto the magical trolley that transports me back into the rest of my life. And here i am.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2000/11/1519154/