Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

stories

Lost! And, Found!

by

I woke up with ambition yesterday morning (rare) and, after a brief (and cheap) Amazon shopping spree I decided to go for a bicycle ride while it was still early.

(This in spite of last year’s traumatizing bicycle hijinks, and instead of a mile jog, on the assumption that i could sustain my exercise much longer on a bike than wheezing and myocardial infarctioning my waya round Dickinson Square Park.)

I had an idea of the route i wanted to take away from my house, but hadn’t really decided on what streets to use to get back to my house. I considered bringing my wallet in the event that i passed anywhere interesting to have breakfast, but i couldn’t find my bike lock, so i realistically couldn’t stop anywhere.

Fast forward to the beginning of the fourth mile, as i realized that i would swing just two blocks from the Melrose. Maybe i could order out and sit with my bike and eat? I patted my ass to check for my wallet only to find that it wasn’t there.

No big deal… i didn’t bring it. Right? Right?!

I had to hope not, at least for the moment – it was no use backtracking. I could only retrace half of my path while covering the same ground before Pattison turned into a mile-long, medianed, blind curve on which i wouldn’t dare ride against traffic.

By mile five i still couldn’t remember what my ultimate decision on the wallet-bringing was. It would be just like me to not remember leaving it on my desk, or anywhere else in the house, for that matter – i don’t lose things so much as i leave them in places i don’t expect them to be left.

By the time i got back to the house i was sure that my wallet was still on my desk. So sure that i was shocked, shocked i tell you, to find that it wasn’t on my desk. Or on the floor in front of my desk. Or in the jeans i decided not to wear. Or in the basement where i keep my bike. Or in the refridgerator, or anywhere else i might have mistakenly left it in trade for some other item.

Yes, my wallet was almost definitely somewhere on the course of my seven mile route, which included well-travelled bits of Snyder Plaza and prime jogging territory in front of the stadiums. If it fell out of my pocket either of those places it was bound to be gone by now.

My first thought was that, clearly, a higher power was trying to convince me not to exercise via bi-wheeled cycle, as nothing good ever happens to me when i ride it. After i got past lamenting that I starting to get worked up thinking about cancelling my credit cards, and if my shopping spree would still go through. I had to find that wallet, if for no reason other than for the scandalously cheap Indigo Girls CDs that i had just bought.

Let’s think about this, i told myself. Up to where I realized I lost it I had stuck with my path with no deviation, and always rode with traffic when there was a bike lane. The wallet was in my back pocket. At points where my ass was planted firmly on the seat it had nowhere to go. It also wasn’t likely to slip out anywhere i was idly pedalling or mostly coasting. I had it have lost it somewhere bumpy, or somewhere where i was pedalling hard to speed up or change gears.

By sheer deduction this (in theory) eliminated all the well-travelled bits, leaving the Weccacoe-Pattison connection, which involved crossing both cobblestones and tracks, followed by a lengthy straightaway, and then the scary one mile blind curve of Pattison Ave that cars definitely took at more than the posted 35mph. I hoped it wasn’t on the curve, because couldn’t figure out how to stop there to pick it up without being killed. It was scary enough the first time while moving.

Well, it wasn’t at the curve … it was at the exact point where all three of my conditions were met – i was high above the seat to avoid getting jostled by the tracks, already pedalling hard heading into the straightaway, and fingering the gear shift. Actually, i almost forgot to keep an eye out for my wallet before i realized that i was doing all three things, and then i looked down and there was my wallet.

Serendipitous luck? The bicycle gods trying to entice me not to abandon their instrument of misery and destruction? Are my Veronica Mars-like skills of deduction honed to such a fine point that the location of the wallet was hardly a mystery? Or, am i just so deep into leftover good karma from this summer that i was bound to find it somewhere?

In any event, point taken – the wallet comes with me every time, safey ensconced behind a zipper or several buttons.

Gimme a Head With Hair

by

I am emerging from my ugly phase.

Last trip to the hairdresser – just for a trim – my shampooer warned me. “You’re going to go through an ugly phase,” she matter-of-facted at me, before admonishing, “and don’t go cutting it off just because you’re in the ugly phase.”

Because, cutting it off means my hair has won our little battle.

The ugly was seductively convincing. Hair in the eyes. Messing with complexion. Head is too fat now to look good with long hair, anyhow.

The litany was in full-effect last week, and it became clear I would have to beat my hair into submission before it would end. So, I did something unprecedented (which cutting it off wouldn’t be, if we recall the Mohawk and other such endeavors). I walked into the bathroom, lined up my styling products, and took out Elise’s curling iron, hairdryer, and an array of brushes. An hour later, I emerged with feathered hair.

You have to understand that – long or short – hairstyling with anything other than a hand and some mousse is against my personal aesthetic. In high school I grew my hair into a pony-tail to avoid styling, and subsequently chopped it all off for the same reason. Every haircut I’ve had has been motivated by wanting to have to style less.

But, desperate times call for the most desperate of measures, and so style I did. My hair is perhaps a wee long for framing my face with feathers, so I wound up slightly more Farah Fawcett than John Travolta from Kotter. Before bed I carefully wrapped my work in a series of bandannas to preserve it for the night, and the next day I sported stylish (though slightly flattened) feathering at work. And, I didn’t feel ugly!

I have yet to reattain the epitome of my prettiness, but I have escaped the seductive “cut it off” allure of the uglies to inch ever closer to unspeakably desirable rock star look i’m cultivating.

Pheromones (or, Maybe I Should Just Change My Brand of Shampoo)

by

When i worked as an intern at Record Kingdom the big man named Train once gave a little speech about pheromones. Because, you know, before he was a DJ he was a biology major.

“Pheromones,” he opined, “are in the air between us humans. You’re naive if you think they don’t exist, and if you don’t think certain things might trigger them. They change as you change, and as things change you.”

His statement was in response to my stating that it felt as though more girls were hitting on me now that my dating Elise had become a permanent fixture of my life. His prevailing thought was that my having someone to make out with was triggering my pheromones to be released into the air, attracting all the women i could never have before.

After that i think he headed off to the record room to smoke a joint.

.

It was early in the day today that i decided that i must be putting off pheromones. I’m not sure exactly when it occurred to me. It was after the first girl, in the subway. She was plain, not anyone i’d be caught flirting with. But, she had Anastasia’s jeans.

Not her exact pair, maybe. But, the same sort of jeans. Jeans you’d expect to be riding low on the punk hips of a dirty rocker boy, but instead were showing tantalizing not-too-flat ovals of flesh of a girl without being hip-hugging in the least.

I don’t know. I guess it find those jeans sexy in the same way i always think girls who wear Happy are attractive. Anastasia is the first person i hung out with for that amount of time prior to college – she was bound to have an impact on me. This isn’t a story about her, though.

Mostly not, anyhow.

I remember thinking as i started relentlessly at the belly- and crotch-area of this poor unsuspecting girl that she couldn’t be too happy about a stranger gawking at her girly areas, boyishly hot jeans or not. She didn’t seem to mind, though, even though I was sure she had spotted me at least twice.

When the Orange finally arrived we wound up in the same car, but i made sure to sit facing backwards while she walked a lazy switch to the front of the car. No more staring for me.

Not at that girl, anyhow. You see, at the next stop entered a young woman – who i’ve seen before – in possession of exactly the crushingly fragile quality of one Ms. Kirsten Dunst.

(Now, it has been said that best friend Lindsay also resembles Ms. Dunst, so much so that when said starlet pranced in her underwear in a particular film we all averted our eyes from the screen in embarrassment because Lindsay was sitting there in the same theatre. Creepy. Yet, Lindsay’s way of resembling Kirsten is different; she possesses more of that daffy smile, and those charming eyes. I’d hardly describe her as fragile.)

I immediately averted my gaze from the Dunst-a-like, cursing under my breath that i probably should have left the house early like Elise asked me to so i wouldn’t feel like i was running the gauntlet of girly temptation for the entirety of my commute. What would be the point, anyhow? It’s not as if i would walk up to the girl, saying in my coolest jive, “Has anyone told you that you have the eminently breakable look of Ms. Kirsten Dunst?”

It was moot, that point, as the young lady chose (quite improbably, based on other available seats, which supports pheromones theory) to sit directly next to me, pinning me between a sideways-facing seat and the window with her porcelain Dunstness. She was fiddling with her Nano, unable to drag it out of the silken purse that was acting as its case.

Don’t look at her song. Don’t look at her song. Don’t look. Just don’t. It was either bound to be some favorite of mine (older Rilo Kiley, i decided), or something off of the Elizabethtown soundtrack. I would have to start a conversation. And, honestly, even when i’m trying to start a purely geek-to-geek conversation with a pretty young woman i feel weird – as if i’ve finally perfecting the whole notion of picking someone up when i really only want to talk about record collections.

I was sure she had to be getting off at Market because, really, who doesn’t, but when i made that half-hearted “I’m standing up now” motion she just looked over at me and gave me a haphazard sort of smile that could contextually either mean “oh, sorry, just squeeze past me,” or maybe, “yes, it is sort of creepy how Kirsten dates Jake Gyllenhaal when she could body-double for his sister,” but probably the first, because i had to squeeze past her to get off at Market Street.

I spent my walk to the Green smiling about my encounter, and how ridiculous i am. Of course i could have spoken to her; it’s not as though i lack for the power of speech. And it wouldn’t have had to be creepy. I could just say, “I see you a lot when i’m RIDING WITH MY GIRLFRIEND OF FOUR-AND-A-HALF YEARS hi how are you?”

That thought carried me as far as a seat on the Green, which i ride just for one stop, and i looked up from it to find…

No, please, guess.

If i found the Dunst-a-like somewhat attractive, if just in her impersonation and not for any individually-possessed reason, i was now encountering the REAL DEAL(TM) – someone an order-of-magnitude or three beyond in her actual attractiveness. This woman… her name, for sure, is Elizabeth G-something or O-something, and she works in our Marketing department, and she is possessed of a surreal otherworldly beauty of Alison Headley playing a Rivendell Elf in anamorphic widescreen.

Of course, i don’t have any sort of unrequited desire for Alison Headley (that i’m aware of), so this woman is much more intimidating – as she is in possession of her own allure. For all other intents and purposes she’s just some Marketing chick from South Philly, but i have such a ridiculously huge elevator crush on her and the thing is i have every reason to talk to her because i make friends on the elevator all the time.

We exit, and i slip past her on the stairs up to our building. Enough with the women. I was late for work, anyhow. Into the lobby, into the elevator, up up and away. I fairly flung the revolving door behind me, perhaps hoping to trip up the next commuter so as to delay elf-Alison from catching up to me.

Into the elevator, turn, and there she was again, smiling in recognition at me after our Green ride (and countless prior silent elevator rides, because god forbid i open my mouth and learn something about her to make her less incredibly frightening). And, as i was pinned into my seat in the Orange, here i was pinned into the back corner of the elevator as she chatted merrily about some unintelligible work topic with someone else who had entered the elevator.

.

I had never been so happy to get into my cubicle.

It might sound silly, but after those twin encounters i felt somehow set-upon – as if i was being dared to find someone more attractive than Elise, or have some sort of unfaithful thought. And, of course, i would do neither, but a pretty girl is still a pretty girl, made somehow more threatening by the fact that i am now socially empowered to say hello without any fear of actually being a repulsive moron.

No, just the fear that i might be mistaken for trying to get a number, and mistakenly get a number thinking i had made a new friend, and then going out for a drink sometime only to have her lean in unexpectedly for a kiss and why did she do that?

Better off in my cube. No women in there. And, honestly, it made the day go by. I kept chuckling at myself, at how i unintentionally wound up sitting next two of the more attractive elements of my commute. What a day, i thought.

Somewhere towards the middle of said day i was charged with bringing a letter up to Legal, and not returning until it was approved. Typical fare, and a nice Friday duty because at least i was comfortable in a pair of jeans and not jousting with lawyers in power-suits. In any event, i was going up to see my second-favorite lawyer. A fun task. I phone-tagged with her assistant to make sure i was an expected guest.

I left the letter with the lawyer and waited politely outside her office by her assistant’s vacant desk while she read.

“Oh, excuse me.”

Around my hip slipped the most attractive Legal assistant of the Legal Department, to sit at second-favorite-lawyer’s-assistant’s desk. Except, she wasn’t s-f-l’s assistant. Of this, i was as sure as i was that her reading glasses only enhanced her librarian hotness. My Director teases me every time she drops something off to our department, probably because i blush the shade of cranberry each time she taps me on the shoulder.

“You’re not s-f-l’s assistant,” i said, blush now fully engaged.

She giggled, “Yes i am.”

“No, you’re some-other-lawyer’s assistant. You never sit at this desk.”

“I must have been filling in. I’ve been s-f-l’s assistant all year.”

“Oh.”

At least this time the attractive woman was where she was supposed to be, and not just sidling up to me unexpectedly on public transit. Having stepping firmly in a pile of awkward with my opening volley, i let her take charge of the conversation.

“Busy down there even before a holiday, huh?”

“Even busier, i think. There’re always communications to be reviewed, but there’s less of us here to move them around.”

“Well, you seem to be holding up very well.”

“Erm. Yes.”

S-f-l’s door opened, mercifully.

(I should mention, here, that S-F-L is a rather strikingly attractive woman who has about decade on me. Thankfully, slightly older women just don’t take the sense out of me like every other woman does.)

“Peter, your shoes match your shirt perfectly.”

“So you’re done signing off on the i’m sorry what did you say?”

“Your shoes,” my secound-favorite-lawyer said, and, of course her assistant had now come out of her cube to stare at my shoes along with s-f-l. “They are the exact shades of brown and blue as your shirt.”

I was wearing shoes that i had picked while Bonnaroo-shopping with Mary. She picked a pair of shoes that i liked, so i bought them too. Yes, girl’s shoes. Size 11 girl’s shoes.

Assistant: “Did you do that intentionally?”

Me: “What?” Buy girl’s shoes?

Assistant: “When you were getting dressed?”

Me: Um… Don’t you dare think of me naked.

S-F-L: Or, did you buy them just for that shirt?

Assistant: Or, the shirt just for those shoes?

S-F-L: Oo, or that?

Me: They’re girl’s shoes! I’m wearing girls shoes. Thanksforsigningoffontheletter, everybodydrivesafelyfortheholiday, thankyou, goodbye.

.

To spare you several thousand more words of elaboration, suffice it to say that the intense female-attention weirdness continued, unabated, through the end of the work day and into my private life. After work my shampoo woman of several years hugged me goodbye. Oddness.

New haircut on head, i decided to walk off the end of my obvious pheromone-attack with a tangerine water-ice and an extra two blocks before catching the dreaded orange-line that began it all. Now i was suspicious – and how could i not be – of every woman passing me on the street. I projected thoughts towards them as loudly as i could.

Sorry, i’m taken. My girlfriend is way hotter, actually. No, i’ve never even been inside an Abercrombie.

My internal monologue carried me down to the Orange at Lombard, platform newly emptied by a Northbound train. I finished the last spoon of oranged-ice and tossed my paper cup into the garbage. Not too much longer for a train.

Through the backs of the stairs to the platform i saw a pair of feet carrying a definitely female body down the flight. One more challenge before i get home, i thought with a chuckle. As if she would sit next to me on a completely empty subway platform. Yes, that would prove that i was truly strong with the pheromonage for the day.

The female shape rounded the side of the stairs and headed towards my half of the platform. Just half. 50/50 chance. Not a threat.

I looked intently at my girl-shoes. They were cute.

I heard the rustle of her dress as she approached, spying peripherally that she was wearing blue/green leotards under her dress. Must be heading to a bench farther than mine.

Then i felt the rustle of her dress.

“Peter?”

I looked up from my slimly lined shoes.

It was Anastasia.

.

Stop for a moment to marvel at the symmetry. Had the day i had been fated to me, starting with the Anastasia-jeaned girl and ending with me inexplicably waiting for the reverse of the same train with Anastasia herself? Or, could i have averted it all by leaving the house with Elise, or even by not buying the water ice? Why does life turn out the way that it does?

.

I won’t record Anastasia’s chapter of my pheromone-soaked day, because it really had nothing to do with it. Just two formerly close friends catching up for the first time as adults. I was stymied after a day of being beset by women who look great and mean nothing to be met by one who means an awful lot. An awful lot of memories and songs and hung-low jeans and perfumes that invoke her to this day.

Off the subway we kept talking until we came to Reed, up the street eleven blocks from the house where i lived that year we were friends. We exchanged no numbers, but some digital information, and briefly hugged goodbye. And, i could feel my pheromone day come to a close as it collided with her perfume.

She was no longer drenched in Happy – something sweeter and folksier – i thought, and it hung at the edge of my collar long after our hug had ended and i had crossed Broad. Whatever my animal allure of the day had been, the spell had been broken there in that friendly hug. No attraction to silly jeans, or imitation Dunstness, or elven allure, or a sharp pair of reading glasses. Just a hug.

Maybe it was my imagination all along.

A ‘Rooing We Shall Go!

by

In less then twenty hours i will be en-route to one of America’s Big Three music festivals – Bonnaroo – unfolding for four days in the center of a 700+ acre Tennessee farm with over 75,000 rock fans camping out to take in the nearly 24/7 music, comedy, and film.

Knowing me as well as you surely do, you might find yourself wondering, “Are you sure you want to camp in the middle of almost 100k people in the middle of a farm in the middle of Tennessee in the middle of June?” I am definitely not pro-camping, am slightly anti-people, assuredly pro-metro pro-blue-states, and for sure anti-heat.

Clearly, Bonnaroo is my personal kryptonite – a collection of all the things that leave me woozy just from contemplating them, but lined with the glowing allure of endlessly awesome music.

However, consider this: i am nothing if not a consumate over-preparer. And, while that won’t help me too much with the small city i’ll be surrounded with, it certainly bodes well for a road-trip that ends in camping in withering summer heat. I have equipped myself with a partner nearly equal to myself in OCD worrywartism.

We tandem shopped Walmart, Target, and EMS sports for necessary supplies, working from an exhaustive excel spreadsheet. We set up and struck our tent (an 8-man with a shade porch) at night while tipsy and with little light to simulate actual conditions.

We have our travel itinerary printed in a binder with corresponding directions, historical notes, and soundtrack (a la Elizabethtown, but with better music). We have an entire pharmaceutical cabinet masquerading as a duffel bag, chock full of sanitizers, moisturizers, analgesics, and antihistamines. We have a trio of eight-mile range walkie-talkies that charge in the car.

And, perhaps most importantly, we have enough liquor to keep several dozen fest-goers drunk for a solid twenty-four hours (and, lest that sound irresponsible, we also have corresponding FAQs on hangover cures, dehydration, and heatstroke).

I am ready for Bonnaroo. I think. I’m still on the fence about buying something with GPS.

No, really, I’m ready. Stay tuned to see if i managed to blog any of the festival via picture posts and time in the ‘Roo internet tent.

The Bathroom Stall Was Just a Red Herring

by

Today at work I walked into the men’s restroom and began to open the door of a stall when, from within the other stall, came a voice.

“Uh, I wouldn’t go in there.”

I stopped in my tracks.

In my experience, communication from within a bathroom stall in the workplace is utterly forbidden due to social taboo associated with identifying yourself while on the crapper. I hadn’t recognized the voice of its inhabitant, and when I leaned slightly sideways to look at his shoes under the stall I swear he slid his feet backwards, out of my sight.

I addressed the closed door of the occupied stall, and the disembodied stall voice within.

“Is there something wrong with the toilet?”

“No,” the disembodied stall voice replied, “but, don’t try to use it.”

At this point the disembodied voice’s somewhat cryptic manner of communication was starting to bug me. Why not just say, “Watch out, that toilet is clogged,” or apologize from preventing me from using the bathroom with “Sorry, that one’s clogged,” which also tacitly apologizes in the case that the voice was actually the clogger?

Was there perhaps a little bit of guilt at play there? Maybe I was dealing with the clogger! Or, maybe he was so afraid of the taboo associated with stall-talk that he could barely string together a coherent sentence, let alone an informational one.

I decided to probe for more information, and to perhaps reveal the guilt- and/or fear- ridden, somewhat cryptic, disembodied voice’s identity.

“Did you call facilities?”

“No. uh. You should definitely call facilities. Good idea.”

Now completely frustrated with the lack of initiative of the guilt- and/or fear- ridden, somewhat cryptic, disembodied voice of the bathroom stall, I stalked out of the bathroom (still having to actually *use* a bathroom, mind you, rather badly at this point).

The had voice set up a wonderful catch-22 wherein I either took responsibility for calling facilities or be forced to feel guilty about the next person who tried to use the toilet. He was also playing upon the fact that only he and I would know the toilet was clogged in order to compel me to leave a “Do not use” note on the stall.

I was, in fact, embroiled in a twisted case of bathroom blackmail at the hands of the initiative-lacking, guilt- and/or fear- ridden, somewhat cryptic, disembodied voice of the bathroom stall. (Hands… of the disembodied… never mind)

Forced into complicity with the blackmailing, I phoned facilities.

“Hi. I work on 35, and I’d like to report a problem with the left hand stall in the men’s restroom.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Uh. I’m not sure. Someone told me to call facilities about it.”

“So, it won’t flush?”

Actually, I wasn’t even sure what was wrong with it.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, what happened when you used the toilet?”

“I didn’t use it. I was going to use it, but…”

Here I paused, afraid to allude to the blackmailing, initiative-lacking, guilt- and/or fear- ridden, somewhat cryptic, disembodied voice of the bathroom stall for fear of some unspecified retribution.

“…something seemed wrong. So I didn’t use it.”

“Something seemed wrong with the toilet?”

“Yes.”

“So you didn’t use it?”

“That’s correct.”

“So, what sort of service does it require?”

Again, I was stymied. What sort of service did it require?

“Um. someone should just come up and take a look at it.”

“Okay. I’ll just enter a ticket that you experienced a problem.”

“No, no, I didn’t experience it. I’m just aware of it.”

“Okay. So, you’re aware of a problem – an unknown problem – with the left-hand stall in the 35th floor men’s bathroom.”

“Yes, perfect.”

The facilities operator hung up on me, presumably out of disgust.

I quickly scrawled a “do not use” note, attempting to disguise my distinctive handwriting (link) so that it would not seem as though i was responsible for the stall issue.

As I walked the note back to the bathroom, I began to wonder – maybe my blackmailer wasn’t really the actual blackmailer. Maybe I was called upon to resolve the stall issue not by an original blackmailer, but another victim of bathroom blackmail (much like Mr. Wadsworth leads everyone to believe in Clue). Perhaps the not-actually blackmailing, blackmailing, initiative-lacking, guilt- and/or fear- ridden, somewhat cryptic, disembodied voice of the bathroom stall was a sympathetic character who, after seating himself in the stall, heard a dreadful gurgling from the next stall and witnessed from under his door a pair of feet quickly fleeing the scene. Maybe his crypticism was only a function of his fear!

I checked back later in the day to see that, though my note was intact, someone had in fact tried to use the stall. And, without going into details, I can affirm that horror ensued. Or, did it? Maybe my blackmailer (or, more specifically, the original blackmailer, as I might have been on a second-tier blackmailer) had used the toilet specifically to enhance their blackmail of me, or even to pin the blame on me after I had left my incriminating “do not use” note – which I now dare not retreive lest my dress shoes be subjected to the horror that had ensued.

Moral: Don’t ever talk to anyone in the bathroom unless they’re at a sink.

Or, this could be the moral: Don’t take responsibility for something you didn’t do. Especially in a bathroom.

But, this is really the moral: The next time you ask me why I don’t post more often, be prepared to endure the insane ramblings produced by being stuck inside a high-rise for the entirety of the nicest day of the year so far. And by being blackmailed by a sympathetic, possibly not-actually blackmailing, blackmailing, initiative-lacking, guilt- and/or fear- ridden, somewhat cryptic, disembodied voice of a bathroom stall.