Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

thoughts

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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 like details. I can be in charge of details, and work with details, and love details. However, tonight i have once again reaffirmed my deep-seated loathing of being a director of many detailed things, which is to say that i cannot keep track of white-balance, aperture, sound level, framing, focus, and the continuity of whether the paper towels should be on the table or on the floor all at once.


So help me god if i lose points for the one shot i have with paper towels on the table i’m dropping out.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/01/8926726/

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The feelings i have are these slippery things, and i wish they were more like velcro. I wish i could throw words at them and have them stick. I feel… slighted, continuously slighted by life despite my attempts to make it worthwhile. I feel unappreciated for being someone i enjoy being and over-valued for things i despise. And, of course, alone on a Sunday night my immediate reaction is to try to write a song about how i feel and, failing that, to blog about it.


The thing is, i’ve written this song already and blogged about it a hundred times. Yesterday Lindsay and i had a ridiculously deep conversation while watching the Eagles game, and i said something about getting married and having children and a house, and i meant it. But, i can never have any of that so long as i live within this private universe i’ve constructed, with all of its own symbolism and meaning.


I’m usually not shy with my lyrics, but this week i wrote something that says how i feel and i purposefully tucked it away. It Says how i Feel, but i can’t sing it or play it because for it to really come out and do justice to all the slippery feelings i have inside i need to make it perfect. In my head i hear the sighing melody and the double bass beat on the chords in the chorus, but try as i may i can’t get even a line of it to come out like that at all. Anyway, i don’t know what to say about this feeling other than what i already said in these lyrics last week, so here’s the latter half of them:

Imagine my whole life as Technicolor — with someone painting the shades into the scenes, and everyone acting from scripts with each other. They’re all off-book except for me, so every day is a stumble-through rehearsal, and each night is an actors’ worst dream because i never know the right thing to say, and i’m left silent in the spaces in-between. So, my front porch is a consolation, my door is a sigh of relief. The stairs are invigorating, my room is a reprieve. It’s then that i open my mouth, and the room is filled — the words come pouring out. My guts are spilled. It’s a shame i can only find my voice between four lonely walls of brick and concrete, but i don’t really have any choice: it’s just something about emptiness and me. Outside i feel just slightly out of focus; around other people i sing a little off-key. I wonder all the time if anyone will notice that i seem to be coming apart at the seams. I am coming apart at the seams.

It’s a one-dimensional representation of what i’m trying to say… my words stripped of inflection and tone. But, it’s the closest i can come to opening this up to you, so take it for what it is.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/01/8889949/

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So, if yesterday was a kick in the ass i think today must have been a punch in the gut. The funny thing is, nothing bad happened. Nada. Actually, the day was quite nice.


In other news, i just wrote a song without the word “you” in it. Be very afraid. It’s too late to record it though (roommates are sleeping soundly below), so i’m just here. Here. No homework or anything. Well, actually my homework is mostly just staring anxiously at the silvery reinforced crate that the digital video camera for my class is sitting in. I somehow (am an idiot) managed not to purchase a DV tape before picking up the camera, so i can’t shoot any footage. So, basically, I’m just sitting here staring anxiously at the silver Camera Box. It seems to realize that it makes me uncomfortable, and so it shines unobtrusively in the manner of a much more delightful object, but still inspires terror in the depths of my soul.


Which goes along nicely with the punch in the stomach, actually.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/01/8737162/

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Sleep has the marvelous ability to make everything make sense that i wish life would learn how to use. Sleep wrapped itself around me last night in an unrelenting grip, and i don’t even remember getting up five times to turn off my alarm, although they all obviously happened. What i do remember is a dream where the green skin of my guitar was slowly unraveling, and where i found myself in Texas drinking a bottle of blue Gatorade i found in Alison‘s house.


The subconscious is obsessed with having everything in its right place, which has to make you wonder. If all of our dreams can make so much sense, despite the incredibly disparate elements therein, then why can’t our lives do the same? Obviously we are the ones in the way, because our brains (if left to their own devices) would happily resolve all of our problems into a neat narrative that would only seem unreasonable upon examination. The trouble is that we are professional examiners of life… we specialize in nitpicking and tearing apart every moment we encounter until it is just a shredded up set of possibilities lying in a mess on the floor.

Coincidence and Deja-Vu belong to dreams; they are not feelings so much as they are plot devices, meant to steer us in the fateful direction we are somehow intended to travel.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/01/8681246/