Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

self-aware

My Secret Rock Star Life

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I suppose that last post bears some explanation of my secret rock star identity.

It is so secret that hardly anyone is aware of it. Hopefully that will soon change.

I started writing original music in high school as a hobby – not something I defined myself by. In college i was a part of a group of extremely talented actors, singers, and musicians. But, though i could rightfully identify myself in all three categories, i never felt as though what i was bringing to the stage was as valid as what other people did. After every audition or performance I was my own harshest critic, and as a result I slowly disappeared from performances, relegating myself to a off-stage role.

However, there was still one thing at which I was better – maybe best – than everyone I knew: writing songs.

It wasn’t a matter of pride or self-confidence – it was just something i knew. My best five or ten or twenty songs stood up against the songs of my friends, and even the songs on albums I bought every week. I could remain a performer as long as I had my songs, so I labeled myself a singer-songwriter. I played at parties. I recorded songs for my webpage. I walked from my apartment to campus, playing guitar and singing the whole way. As long as i had a song to stand behind i was fearless.

As college wore on, some of the more multi-talented friends in our extended group gained an amount of local notoriety as singer-songwriters fronting bands. I finally had people – peers – to compare myself to, and it was immediately clear that I didn’t sing as well, or play guitar as well, or record as well, or work the stage as well.

This was especially demoralizing because my songs were still great – it was just me that wasn’t good enough. I let it get to me – right down to the very core of me, and as a resultI graduated having not played an original front of people for over a year (with one exception – poorly received), and I had even stopped recording – frustrated that my voice never came out how I heard it in my head.

I decided that for my first year of professional life i was leaving my creative side behind – i had to focus on working hard, and on being a good boyfriend to Elise, because that’s what was important. Creativity, music especially, was a lark I could afford to ignore.

My resolve was strong, and even after the year was over and I starred in a successful bit of post-collegiate theatre i was still holding out on music. I still hadn’t performed anywhere, and even my once-prolific writing had ground to a halt.

I can pinpoint the exact moment when everything changed.

Last December I made my yearly appearance at the Shubin Theatre Holiday Revue. I appear not because of any great talent, but because I am friends of the Shubin family, which includes Gina, my sometimes co-writer. In 2005 I was performing on relatively short notice, and so instead of my typical cover or collaboration I decided to play an original – Seams – a song all about my imperfection, my lack of confidence, my reticence to perform anywhere outside of my own bedroom.

In that tiny theatre with forty or fifty people watching I rediscovered me as a musician. I was singing words I had written, words I still very much meant, and as they left my mouth I could feel – even see – them connecting with members of the audience. At the after party people asked where they could see or hear me perform and, slightly embarrassed, I told them that they couldn’t.

As I said it I realized the ridiculousness of it. I had these great songs – catchy songs, witty songs, meaningful songs – and here I was refusing to play them because I didn’t deem myself to be good enough. It seemed rational to me for years, but that night I realized how unfair it was to the songs.

I am no longer a part of that disproportionately talented college friends – I’m a part of the world at large. And, in that world I am unique in my ability to sing and play at all, let alone with some amount of skill, and I am unique in my ability and willingness to document my life through song.

In this much wider world I am done with hiding my songs in my bedroom, and with that newfound confidence i find that my singing, playing, and performing are suddenly not so bad as i thought they were. I can play in front of friends or strangers knowing i deserve their attention as much as anyone else, and sometimes i even win it.

Today, and tonight at The Sidecar Bar, I am a singer-songwriter. And, it’s not a secret anymore.

Live From the Icebox

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I’ve convinced my inner OCD Godzilla that there’s no harm in randomly surfing through some NaBloPoMo blogs as long as I track them meticulously via a spreadsheet. He, in turn, will not consume my soul with the power of his Atomic Breath.

I’m realizing that Fussy, much like the Dooce, almighty queen of the internet, is a blogger with a small child. The difference would seem to be that Dooce was already in-progress on queendom when she had her baby (the adorable Leta), wheras Fussy began with precocious Jackson already in place.

In any event, young married women with adorable children (Alpha Moms? I’m not clear on what that means, exactly) seem to be Fussy’s primary demographic, so i have no doubt i’ll be encountering lots of cute little babies in my web surfing, which is fine, because i completely understand that while babies are cute they also scream indiscriminantly when you are recording a new song, and i am still way too self-involved to want to be responsible any sort of creature that involves my having to record more takes of anything. This also extends to birds and yappy dogs.

What’s a little disconcerting is that a lot of these people are totally my peers, except they spend their money on diapers and care about other people while i’m still spending money on concert tickets and am completely self-involved. It sortof freaks me out. I mean, i can withstand, like, ten whole minutes of pictures of cute babies, but the lack of self-involvement is a little disturbing. At least Fussy and Dooce are both still obsessed with themseves. And, they both still enjoy a strong cocktail.
Oh, right, websites. The first NaBloPoMo blog i happened upon is called Rudderless, and Loving It. Here i thought the title was just punny and figurative but – NAY – it is about a family who lives on a boat in the Florida keys (to which my response was OMG, they have internet on boats!!!). They link to quite possibly the cutest halloween picture of all time.

When i was younger my mom seemed to primarily date men who owned boats, and even though i could never fit my entire comic book collection onto one i really liked going for a ride because boats just make so much more sense than cars, and because i liked parking it in open water and then going underneath to take a nap. Also, the first time i rode on a boat it was with a funny older lady who had a cat and an inexaustible supply of oreo cookies, whereas the first memory i have of a car involves my mother locking a tiny, toddler-sized me in our golden Nova at a gas station.
And people wonder why i don’t have my driver’s license. Oh, right, topic. Back to the topic.
Pam Rentz blogs at You’re Doing It Wrong; anyone who ends a technical blog-related lament with the sentence “No doubt a bottle of red wine will be involved” is awesome. Also, apparently Lucy Lawless remade herself into some sort of blues-belting rock animal via a television show called Celebrity Duets? I never really watched Xena, but there is definitely something inherently awesome about Lucy that just got awesomer now that i know she’s an aspiring blues singer trapped inside the body of a Glamazon.

I just wandered downstairs and i think it is literally warmer in the refridgerator than in the rest of the kitchen. Gingerbread Latte often refers to herself in third-person plural and uses [redacted] in her blog, which i love. Gimme Sanity is stunningly gorgeous, lives in NYC, has an adorable baby, is a serious knitter and student, and runs marathons. She has pretty much won life.

Okay, i’ve been sitting on this post for an hour now, i need to just let it go. And maybe build a small fire out in the hallway.

Bleary-but-Wide Eyed

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It is in the general vicinity of freezing outside, and the incursion of said temperature into our house is the only thing keeping me awake and alert at the moment. And, in my least wakeful state the only two things i can really manage are playing guitar and blogging, and it’s way too cold to play guitar.
Elise went off to have breakfast at Ikea and shopping in other heated buildings, leaving me to suffer alone from my refusal to turn on the heat before Thanksgiving. Because, underneath this 25-yr-old wrapper i am clearly a stingy old lady living from pension check to pension check.
I want to start winging my way around the NaBloPoMo sites in order to try to catch a little of every writer, but Eden over at Fussy is not done updating the big list of urls (at least, i don’t think she is, because i’m not on it yet, which is OKAY), and the OCD Godzilla inside me says that’d if i start surfing now i’d just have to start over later when the rest of the participants were added. I’ll do whatever you say, OCD Godzilla, just please don’t step on my cold little house or make me talk in overdubbed English.
In the meantime, NaBloPoMoer Lane has created a NaBloPoMo randomizer that will satisfy your endless curiosity about what people would write about every day anyhow.
When i first followed that link i thought, hmm, Lane, that couldn’t be the Lane who i used to read on Trianide, who i loved because she had a webcam but wasn’t a whore, who took amazing photos, and who loved Fiona Apple, could it? This Lane is living in a completely different hemisphere. Surely not the same Lane. Well, from a quick glance at Trianide it turns out it that it is the same Lane! NaBloPoMo: Bringing people together.

Does it count as using the heat if i go downstairs and turn on the oven to cook something but then huddle in front of it to absorb its warmth? It seems like a suitably in-character thing to do if i’m going to keep acting like a batty, frugal, old lady with OCD. And possibly dementia.

Endless Intake (or, Thoughts on Identity)

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I often move through my life feeling as though I have no walls – no resistance to the personalities and pop culture surrounding me.

For years I absorbed the opinions and styles of everything and everything else so much so that I had trouble getting a handle on who I was underneath it all. My opinions and reactions were just a collection of easily identified demographic influences – everything to do with what I consumed or the image that others projected on me, and very little to do with me.

I often manifested this uncertainty of self by acting out – needing to grow out my hair, or to wear flashy clothes and makeup, or to be the loudest most-opinionated person in a room. I still like doing all three of those things from time to time, but now I see that – taken as a whole – they were just my way of trying to create a tangible, distinguishable identity. No one could ignore or forget the long-haired boy in body glitter and black vinyl arguing with you at the top of his lungs.

My outgrowth of that phase might be why explain why I have given up radio and television altogether. People often express shock and horror at the fact that I don’t watch television at all; it’s as if they cannot comprehend even the idea of it. Too many people define themselves by the television show they spend the most time watching, and as a minor-league obsessive-compulsive and a major-league fan I was primary amongst that demographic.

After over two years of media deprivation and gainful employment I feel like I have a better handle on “me” than ever. I’ve found enough of my own opinions, tastes, and stories that I no longer need them to be sublimated by the tightly written copy of others.

However, aside from locking myself in my room I still haven’t found a way to resist the influence of people, and how they make me feel so fuzzy around the edges as their traits osmose into me. I pick up other people’s handwriting as if I am made of silly putty, the curves and splines of my letters easily influenced. My manner and style of speech is just is easily swayed.

I like blogging because it is a way of taking back me. I’ve always been the most comfortable with the written word, and keeping a written archive of my experiences and feelings allows me to re-experience – re-absorb – the aspects of me that matter the most. It makes it easier to get back in character because it represents the most crystalline, most consistent version of me.

I might not ever have a defense against the barrage of media and opinions that greets me each day as I set foot on my front step, but I now also have something much more indelible at my center. And that’s a good feeling.

Who Am I, Anyhow?

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With this month being my blog reboot, I thought an appropriate second post would be something resembling my bio.

I am a blogger. My blog is called Crushing Krisis because I crush-on or am-crushed-by anything and everything, and because my longtime internet handle is “krisis.”

I am a singer-songwriter often too shy or too perfectionist to allow anyone to hear my work.

I am an only child, which sometimes represents itself via my stubborn – often luddite – attitude towards change, as well as my frequent joining and discarding of various recreational activities that involve other people.

I am a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Drexel University. While I obtained my degree I worked one and a half years as a full time, fully paid intern as part of Drexel’s Co-Op program.

I am a Communications Representative at a major Philadelphia company by day, having given up a dream of Journalism in favor of making large(r) sums of money.

I am surrounded by a disproportionately talented and liberal group of friends, the vast majority of whom were made through my (often abortive) involvement with different theatre and music groups in college.

I am obsessed with improving the little things that impact my self-perception. I spend every day obsessing over and trying to improve my budget, my writing, my diet, and my musical skills.

I am a believer in karma – i think if you give good you will always get better.

I am currently the happiest and healthiest i have been in my entire life.