Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Philly

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I never expect winter to play this nicely, even when it is waning on us and giving way to another spring. Kat and Elise were stalking around the Penn Museum courtyard, one posing and the other one snapping away with her 35mm. I was lying splayed out on the grass, half in sun and half in shadow.


“Do you need me to move?”

“No, you’re fine. Are you bored?”

“No, i’m fine.”

I am usually not the most visual person, but i was lying there pressed as close to the earth as i possibly could and i almost asked Elise for her camera so i could capture the air in a single frame. People tell me they want to read about my life, and at that moment my life was blades of grass too close to my face to be in focus, and slanty red brick sidewalks, and green algae in the water.

I was pressing closer and closer to the ground, thinking that maybe if i could get close enough i would understand something about it — something about my relative significance as a speck on a tiny square of grass.


And, no, i wasn’t bored at all.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/10077292/

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Yesterday my journalism class was walking around outside of City Hall in unbelievably bitter cold as Clark talked about the statuary, and my body was in flux. Outside in the crisp air i was round and padded, trying to catch all the places where chill was sneaking past my defenses. As we moved into the building my defenses were forgotten as the four stories of freestanding concrete stairs crept up through the soles of my shoes to leave my whole body gray and heavy as i plodded upward. At the top we walked into cool marble halls, and again i went through a sort of transmutation, everything sliding past me without leaving a mark. Finally, we found our way into the Mayor’s conference room, and i was as wooden as the carvings in the spectacular mantle — solid, but not resistant to the changes that had been worn into me since i was last in that room — almost three years ago with my chopped-off-ponytail hair and my weary sunburnt cheeks, looking unbelievably forward to college.


It’s been twenty four more hours now, but i still feel so much that that mahogany… smooth and polished surface that is hard but malleable… that belies the concentric rings underneath.


Each one shows how much i’ve grown.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9441405/

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There we were, on the median of Broad Street with nearly three thousand dollars of camera equipment, and it had suddenly gotten so dark that we were raising the exposure between every shot. And then, just when i was expecting a downpour of icy rain to trickle into every nook and cranny of our digital camera, down came a smattering of cottony white flakes.

Snow against the stunning red brick of the building was perfect contrast, and i was set on shooting through the storm so we wouldn’t have any continuity breaks in our footage. However, within minutes the smattering had turned into a horizontal blanket of white, and even with my jacket wrapped around the camera and my hands cupped around the viewfinder it was obvious that nature had gotten the best of us. We packed it in and sprinted for the stairs to the subway so we could wipe off the dissolving white flakes from the silvery surface of our Sony.

By the time my trolley came up from underground we were back down to an F-Stop of 8 — the sun was out in force, reflecting back up from tiny puddles lying on darkened cement. I smacked myself squarely in the foreheard with the end of my tripod.

I’d given up before the most beautiful part.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9388565/

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Tuesday, and Philadelphia is thawing. Melting.

Snow provides the contrast on our world — in both directions. A cascade of white dusting over everything slowly reduces life into a study in light and dark, muting all of the inbetweens. And, as it slides off of the back roofs and trickles down the drains, the color slowly seeps back into daily life. Just as our pupils expand to respond to a lack of light in the room, and it feels like the aperture i have in my life for the outside world to effect me is desperately attempting to contract to defend against the vivid existence that today has re-introduced to me.


Here i was standing in the dark, and all of this color has caught me in the middle of a dilate … i was busy opening up, and now it’s just overwhelming. I can’t see past today at all.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/01/8935214/

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I had a flying dream last night. All i did was fly… not the clumsy sort of treading water or the awkward running leaps from my more usual dreams, but an actual taking off and gliding through the air. It was just every-day life plus flying until 5:27 when my computer fired its warning shot of “My Sharona” to let me know i only had another 4 hours of flying left. And, so, i did.

Walnut Street unexpectedly crests into a hill between 42nd and 43rd, and when i’m walking home at night i close my eyes on the way down and ignore my legs. It’s as close to flying as it is to attempting to be mugged, but it’s all i’ve got.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/12/7870909/