Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

stories

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There is someone asleep in my shower.

Actually, he’s not in my shower… he’s more half-in my shower, with his legs splayed out over my seafoam green rug in such a way that i cannot possibly get in to grab my toothbrush and face wash.

Apparently it was a good party.

I’ve never thrown a party before; the small gathering i arranged last month paled in comparison to this one. This, though, was a party … furniture rearranging, obsessive vacuuming, nearly eighty assorted jello shots, fifty dollars just in soda and chips, and two refrigerators full of assorted beer-like substances. I have yet to figure out how many people were here… twenty just from assorted a cappella groups, another ten certified friends of the house, and lots of random non-house friends. A large group of people, to be sure. And, funny things, too. For one, our extra room got turned into a concert hall when i brought all but two of my guitars out to play, and sudden i was being treated to a whole spectrum of songs — from a multiple-MC version of “That Thing” to what amounted to a full-band treatment of “The Only Gay Eskimo.” Recitals of Weezer songs upstairs. Me parading around nearly naked with a pair of underwear on my head.

I didn’t drink a drop.

Right now everything that i spent all day cleaning looks like it was swept over with an alcohol tinged cyclone, and we three roommates have decided to not do a damned thing about it until tomorrow morning when we wake up.

I don’t suppose that our friend in the shower is opposed to the plan.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/03/10324999/

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A few days after Christmas Amy and i went to IKEA to buy various pieces of furniture, and while we were there i bought a set of four 12oz rose-colored glasses. For the entire next week, they were all i drank from.

One just broke. I have two, now. This post is about permanence, and the lack thereof.

In 1998, four years ago this week, my grandfather died. At that point in my life i had lived in the same house for over a dozen years, written a dozen songs, and had never kissed a girl. It was a day like any other; i had probably just gotten home from a late rehearsal, walking down 64th street breathless and running lines in my head. Turning the key in our flimsy front door. I remember my mother was on the couch, and when she spoke it was just like a scene from a movie. I numbly walked upstairs to my mint-green room, put on track 9, and laid on my bed.

I cried there for an hour, alone. That day i wrote the first song that i would actually go on to play for someone other than myself. Since then i have moved four times. However, it was a while before i kissed anyone.

I am an easy person to convince of things, despite high surface levels of skepticism. If you’ve been dating for a year or two and tell me you’ll be together forever, i believe you. I start angling for a spot in your wedding party. I take it on faith that if you’re used to each other and happy that nothing will ever go sour; i’ve never done it myself, so it must be possible.

I wound up getting the question about Fallacy of Ignorance right on my Philosophy final, but i might have not gotten the point.

When a couple breaks up after two years together, it’s hard for me to understand how the world will work afterwards. For me, and for them, and at large … how can i believe in anything if nothing lasts forever like it says it’s going to?

Just before spring of 1998 i wrote “I never kissed somebody so that they would break my heart” in a journal i shared with my best friend Andrea. She replied that she never much cared for Lisa Loeb. The other day i found myself singing the same line as i walked down Walnut street. It still sounds the same, but it means something different now.

My mother is taking a loan to pay off her credit cards; she wants to buy a house. I might fail a class for the first time ever, and it’s my own dumb fault. Auditions are Tuesday. I’m listening to Firecracker.

I can’t tell if things change or not. Thoughts?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9831165/

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We were going to be late for class. I woke up at six thirty, did all of my laundry, read my email, drafted a post, washed the dishes, folded the blankets in the parlor … and i was still going to be late for class, along with a freshly out of bed Lindsay. She brushed her teeth as she made corrections on my bow-tying abilities. I dashed back upstairs to frantically look for my favourite belt while Lindsay was frantically trying to pull her hair back tight enough to her head that she could muster a tiny “nubbin” of a ponytail. It was at this point that Erika emerged from her room practically still in a state of sleep, glibly relating her dream of being Heart from Captain Planet to us as if she was unaware of our need to be a mile and a half away in the next thirty minutes. Lindsay switched from a clip to a rubber-band and off-handedly asked which of our friends played the part of the blonde russian girl in the Captain Power team as i frantically arranged and rearranged flowers.

Erika couldn’t remember, so she started talking about the wonders of Olympic Downhill Skiing, which she had been watching just before three.

I turned to Lindsay. “We’re going to be late, aren’t we?” She replied through teeth clenched around a hair-tie. “Don’t worry; we’re taking the bus.”

Back up the stairs i went, this time to collect bus money (since my wallet was empty save for a single quarter) from my change jar. Erika’s voice wafted up behind me as she idly teased her pet frog. She, apparently, has the day off from work. Next came Lindsay’s voice, not nearly as calm: “Bus at quarter of, are you coming?”

“Yes!” was both my reply and an exclamation at having found the twenty-some coins i would need to get onto the bus. Leather jacket got thrown on, scarf was wrapped around neck, but Blistex was stupidly left behind on my desk. Downstairs again Lindsay was clawing through her desktop clutter to find her cell-phone and i was screaming down the hall about whether or not i should defrost my chicken in the refrigerator. Poultry was subsequently relocated, flowers were primped a final time, and then Lindsay practically threw me down our entry stairs. Out the door we went in a chattering stumbling tangle of her long denim jacket and my felt-like gloves as i fumbled for keys. Door locked tightly, we were down the steps of our porch and heading north to the Chestnut bus stop.

Lindsay stopped dead twenty-five feet under Walnut. “Wait.”


“What?”


She was clawing through her backpack now; “I need to make copies of my paper.”


“Yes?”


“But i only have bus fare.”


“Hmmm.”


“I need a quarter. I’m going to fail if i don’t have another quarter. Oh my god, Peter, we have to go back.”

Out came my wallet, out came the last quarter i had to my name, and all was well. Well until we arrived at Chestnut street to find the bus a half a block ahead of us; about as far as a bus can get in the time it takes for one roommate to paw through her bookbag while the other similarly examines his wallet.

“I am not running after it.”

I offered no argument at all.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9721902/

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My whole life has been about crushing.


In first grade i had a crush on a girl named Jamie. Even with fifteen years of retrospect it still seems as real as any other crush i’ve had since then, despite my tender age at the time: they were the same butterflies. The only difference was that at the time i didn’t have many people to confide in (and, lamentably, no blog), so my mother was the person i turned to with all of my feelings. Yes, she agreed that Jamie was pretty. No, it wasn’t fair the she didn’t like me back. Yes, she knew that i only pulled the drawstring out of her jacket at recess because i was flustered and didn’t know what else to say to her.


Sometime in the winter of first grade was Jamie’s birthday, and our entire class was invited to her birthday bowling party, which i have entirely no recollection of whatsoever. What i do remember is her present. My mother and i had just finished wrapping it, and we were sitting at our creaky kitchen table together in silence when we both noticed we were staring at the same thing.

The toaster.


“Do you want to?”

“I’ll get the shrinky-dink paper, you get the colored pencils!”

Yes, shrinky-dinks… art you could make and then cook until it became entirely indestructible. After a few failed creations, my mother and i settled upon an apple tree, because Jamie liked green. Or red. Or apples. I don’t remember. Anyway, we had finished rendering it in all of its colored-pencil beauty, and i was about to stick it in the toaster.

“Are you done?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh…”

“Why, what do i need to do?”

“Well, i was thinking that you could turn one of the apples into a heart!”

As soon as she said it she knew she had me hooked, despite my feeble protests to the contrary. Out came the red colored pencil, and we meticulously rounded up the curves of one of the apples until it was a heart, stemmed and leafed. Away went the pencils. On went the toaster. In went the tree. The two of us sat with our chins cupped in our hands, watching the edges up it turn up in the heat.

“Do you think she’ll like it?”

“I think so.”

It was a few days after her party that Jamie came up to me before recess, bookbag in hand. Dangling from one tiny black zipper was my tree, on a shiny gold dog tag.

“Peter?”

“Yes?”

“Why is there a heart on my apple tree?”

I learned some important lessons early in life. Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Never take romantic advice from your mother.


But, really, wouldn’t you love to read a blog from when i was six?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9443486/

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I’m not sure what came over me.

Okay, i’m actually quite sure of what came over me. I had been having a shitty depressing day and i didn’t want it to continue into a shitty night and possibly an altogether miserable weekend. I decided that a Best Friend was needed to salvage what was left of my evening, so i put in a phone call to Laurel.

What’s strange is that i don’t do this; i don’t call people up on a Friday night to see what they’re doing. If there’s a party i’ll be there, and if we’re all going out to eat i might show up, but i’m not really into the whole one-on-one hanging out scene. It’s like dating without the date. Or something. But, anyhow, tonight i really just needed to get out of the house, and Laurel was heading out to see a mutual acquaintance of ours play at the NorthStar, so off we went.

I had never been inside of NorthStar bar, because every time someone i want to see plays there it’s not an all ages show. Being an all ages show, tonight was heavy on the college crowd and what had to be a couple dozen fourteen-year-olds who were definitely more punk than i’ll ever be. I am, let’s face it, about as non-punk as it gets. Well, other than Laurel. Although, Laurel at least has boppy ska-grrl potential if we were to get her into a plaid skirt. I, on the other hand, looked like i got lost on the way to a very touching Emo concert; i self-consciously shoved my token studded bracelet into my pocket with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

Laurel happened to be less punk than me precisely because of her bopping … she’s totally unembarrassed to dance around and have a good time, regardless of whether or not she’s fitting in with “the scene.” I, on the other hand, am definitely intimidated by scenes — so much so that i feel desperately out-of-place even at an Ani DiFranco concert (where i probably have as much scene credibility as anyone in the room who isn’t a lesbian). In light of this, i was of the more toe-tapping head-nodding persuasion until the last band came on and we pushed our way up to the front, at which point i actually exhibited some shoulder-movement and general rhythmic body-bopping. With much awkward self-consciousness, of course.

As embarrassment goes, we were definitely a distant second to the massive fist-fight that broke out when a Neanderthalic mosher crash landed too many times on a highly strung hard-core guy. Aside from the frightening part where i had to catch Laurel and ascertain that she hadn’t been struck with a ham-sized fist it was rather amusing; i’ve never been at a concert small enough that the performers stopped mid-song to admonish the moshers. But, anyway, it certainly drew attention away from our toddler-like dancing.

You know, i bet if they bopped more they’d be less violent.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9293457/