Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

thoughts

Adventures in Adulthood

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The past ten days have been an adventure – from the unreality of the Imogen Heap and Lady Gaga concerts to the front seat of our car parked in Chinatown a few hours ago.

It felt right to end it sitting on a bedroom floor with E, her sister with her delightful boyfriend, and appearances of an adrenaline-filled little brother and an exhausted dad, both visiting from the cast party downstairs.

I can find a myriad of reasons to be unhappy. I’ll grant that I used to be better at it, but growing up and getting things that you’ve always wanted for yourself takes the edge off. Still, even all married and with a fulfilling job and being a part time rock star I can make myself miserable. Just ask the me of two Monday’s ago.

I say that by way of contrast: when I’m happy, I know it. I clap my hands. I laugh. I love my hair. I say delirious things that get tweeted if Britt or Amanda are anywhere near me. I break out into Rent in the middle of E’s dad’s foyer, high school girls tittering as they walk past.

Those kids sealed the deal for me. I turned around to talk to E and between us was one of the leadz from the play – imperial and larger than life last night, but tiny, young, and fragile between us. I finally got to tell her how awesome she was. She grinned, thanked me, and then yelled, “Steeeeeeeve, where do I get water in your house?”

She was oblivious, moving through space effortlessly just like she did on stage last night. I never knew how to do that as a teenager. If I was happy, it was fleeting, and if I moved through space effortlessly it was because I forgot myself.

I could not have possibly pictured this life as a teenager, sitting on the floor with a partner and siblings I love, laughing louder than the combined forty teenagers downstairs.

Next time I’m feeling grumpy, awful, unhappy, hateful … just remind me about these ten days.

Filmstar @ Fontana’s

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I am in Fontana’s in the middle of Chinatown in New York waiting for Filmstar to play, and Emily Cavanagh is talking to me from the stage.

Well, not just me, but it might as well be, because she has that kind of stage presence where she is drawing us in instead of pushing herself out.

We are in the midst of a Santa bar crawl, she informs me, clad in a short red skirt and candy cane striped, fur-trimmed arm warmers.

Emily’s three piece is fun and jazzy, and I am marveling at the merry-go-round of NYC music. I might hate it here (not really) (okay, really), but there’s such a wide range of music to hear. I mean, there’s a show with this fun jazzy stuff followed by Elise and the band glam-rocking through a Filmstar set.

I don’t feel like that happens in Philadelphia. It’s still more segregated – the jazz kids stay on the jazz side of the line, the acoustic kids hang out with their own, and the bands drive the big shows.

There are more Santas here by the minute. The room is now filled with Santas. Some are bearded and authentic, while others are half-hearted in hats and vests or just striped stockings.

Emily is kind of killing it, first with “Branch,” then “Down the Line,” and something about “Sunday Morning.” I think I’m going to have to say hello to her.

But, first I have to go sit in our parked car and give the appearance of knowing how to drive a car, because our parking pass expires three minutes before parking is free. And god help me if anyone calls that bluff, because I don’t think I know the window wiper fluid from the gas pedal.

Increase Dreaming, Decreasing Planning AKA Live Life

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So, I have clearly failed at NaBloPoMo 2009, leaving me an embarrassing two for four on the endeavor overall. Honestly, I was doing just fine until the little backend snafu set me back a few days. By the time I figured it out I was back a few more days.

I retweeted a quote last night that resonated pretty strongly with me (so we will forgive it for being from Ashton Kutcher):

Life is too short to waste. Dreams are fulfilled only through action, not through endless planning to take action. – David J. Schwartz

I very quickly received a reply from Colin, one of my quality Philly twitter friends:

@krisis That’s why I don’t get off on passive conversation of awesome stuff like many seem to. I want to DO.

That, too, resonated. I’m a planner – whether it’s for NaBloPoMo or my unendingly pending new album. In many ways my planning is a good thing, but it can mean that I delight more in the thought of something complex than the joy of doing something simple.

Intrigued by the line of thought, I followed the thought to it’s source. Mr. Schwartz is the author of a book called The Magic of Getting What You Want – ostensibly a self-help book, but just as much a life-simplifying manual along the lines of personal favorite Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.

Check out this brief excerpt from the book, as compared to both my endless planning and Colin’s response:

Set a time frame, for your dream fulfillment.

It is a fact that people work more efficiently and faster when they im­pose deadlines or a timetable on what they do. Some time ago, I knew two well-educated young men who had considerable expertise in computer-systems design. … Every weekend for a year they planned their fu­ture business. They continued planning for a second year, and a third year. By this time, they finally con­cluded there was too much competition, so they’d better give up the idea of their own consulting firm.

Imagine how different the result would likely have been if they had agreed at the outset, “We’ll spend our weekends planning for one year (or six months), and then we’ll open our business.”

Keep in mind that as Disraeli said, “Life is too short to be little.” If you live until age 75, you will have spent only 27,391 days, 3,910 weeks, or 912 months on this earth. Life is too short to waste. Dreams are fulfilled only through action, not through endless planning to take action.

As much power as I find in my planning, I need to let those words rule me a little as well. It’s not about winging it, or not planning – it’s just about knowing when to stop planning and start achieving.

What about you? Do you spend more time dreaming than living your dream? Or, do you spend too much time living to have many dreams to live? (Did that make any sense?)

Um… slight difficulties afoot.

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Hi. I am encountering a minor issue with posting – which is to say I wrote this weekend, but you aren’t seeing those posts at the moment.

So, yeah. Hang in there for a moment, listen to the three new demos just below this post. I located my mysteriously disappeared Friday and Saturday posts. Sunday coming shortly. Your patience is appreciated.

And you are…?

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There is a chance you are arriving here for the first time, launched from Twitter or NaBloPoMo.

If that’s the case, hi. I have an extensive series of bios linked off in that other direction. Oh, and for my first NaBloPoMo I spent the entire month re-telling my personal origin story, so be sure to read that too.

That said, I know we are all couch potatoes on the great lazyweb, so you aren’t likely to hustle around clicking those things. As such, allow me to summarize the current state of me:

I live in Philadelphia and am relatively newly wed to my partner of nearly eight years.

We both work in marketing – me in communications development, she in design. We are also both musicians – she the lead singer of Filmstar, me as a solo singer-songwriter as well as and a member of Arcati Crisis.

We’re also relatively voracious consumers of music, especially within Philadelphia, which boasts an astounding and thoroughly-talented local scene.

In addition to my major three loves (wife, comm, music), it turns out I’m also pretty passionate about non-profit development. I probably wouldn’t have told you that before this year, because it is the first time it has been so patently obvious. I helped to throw a music festival and a 24-hour streaming benefit concert, both of which raised funds for respective non-profits, and both of which nearly intellectually slayed me in the process.

Inclusive of prior iterations of the festival and my wedding I spent every free moment planning an event from March of 2007 to this past month.

Right now I’m trying to be pretty passionate about me. It’s hard – for someone who spends a lot of time working in the public eye and promoting others I have an awfully hard time shining the spotlight on myself. It something I have to improve on to avoid doing a disservice to my songs.

Oh, hey, and to my blog, which has run the longest out of any native Philly weblog – I’m currently blogging into my tenth year of inane, self-centered rambling.

We’ll see how that goes.