Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

mom

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I love my mother. I mean… i really hate her sometimes, and i get really frustrated by the fact that we’re both still in Philadelphia so it’s easy for her to sink her claws into my life at a moment’s notice, but there are times when those claws come in pretty handy.

Case and point: right now i’m actually reading my email. Now, for all of you net-junkies this might not seem like such a big deal, but i’m currently tethered up to an IV pole on the sixth floor of Graduate Hospital, and apparently they haven’t implemented a “net access for patients” policy at this point. Of course, being totally addicted to the internet, i was markedly more upset by my inability to blog than the fact that i wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything for 48 hours, and i made it known to anyone who would listen.

My mother happens to work downstairs in the ER, and after a particularly long kvetch that involved me telling her i was going to unhook my saline drip and jog to the internet cafe on Walnut street she disappeared for five minutes only to return with the head doctor of the ER in tow.

With his Macintosh G3 powerbook, and internet connection.

So, here i am, trailing tiny translucent tubes that are supplying me with saline, potassium, Solu-Madrol, and Matronidazol and barely allowed to drink 8oz of white grape juice every hour. And happy.

I love my mom.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/12/7558887/

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Every time i see my mother she has a plastic bag for me, without fail. It always contains a potpourri potentially exploding with tissues, snack bars, cds, mail i’m still receiving at home, household items i probably won’t ever make practical use of, and any special requests i had from home. On Friday when i slid into the back seat of our car while in mid-sentence of bitching about the length of my day and not quite remembering how to tie a tie and not really being able to do anything spectacular with my hair i noticed that the normally expected plastic bag had two familiar long boxes in it, and that’s when i remember that i had asked my mother to bring my Magic Cards with her.

As a frame of reference for this you should know about my first and last experience with Magic. The latter was in Boston where Rabi‘s brother had a deck of 7th Edition cards and i played him in two games at the kitchen table while Rabi idly surfed the internet The former was at my first year as counselor in training at the good day camp, where i watched one of my camper’s older brothers play his friend in what had to be Unlimited edition. So, now that i’ve established those two floating points in space, let’s look at what’s within.

Going from seventh grade to eight grade i really didn’t have very much of anything in my life. I wasn’t especially tight with anyone from Masterman yet, and i only had Monica left over from grade school; i had no life after i got back from camp every day. That was way before I had a website, let alone a computer, and I’m honestly not sure what I did with my free time. My only hobby at that point was … um… i want to say that it was some RPG on Super Nintendo, but i think it might have actually been masturbation. We’ll just let that one lie. Anyhow, point being that Magic excited me… it was like keeping my entire army of GI Joes on tiny shufflable cards and being able to wage war against other people’s collections. I made haste in pestering my mom to buy me some cards as soon as 3rd edition saw wide release, and by Christmas of 8th grade i really did have my veritable personal army which soon included two nearly infallible decks.

The thing about infallible armies is that, no matter how infallible you claim them to be, you’ve eventually got to pit them against another army to see whether they’ll fail or not. And, being the introvert that i was, i wasn’t exactly heading out to comic shops to play other people on gaming nights. My foes were just classmates who randomly got hooked on the game, and they played by all sorts of non-conforming rules on slimy lunch-tables that my cards wouldn’t be caught dead on. So, i just kept buying cards in a vacuum, without any practical use for them. I finally stopped at Ice Age and 4th Edition, because i felt like nothing i really wanted or needed was coming out anymore. The cards went into boxes, the boxes went onto my bookshelf, and with mostly no interruption that’s where they stayed for the entirety of highschool.

And now they’re back, spread out on my floor in a fabulous array of five colors and the names of Anson Maddocks and Melissa Benson calling me back to a hobby meant for multiple partners that I somehow made just as self-contained as masturbation. As a spectacular example of an only child, I suppose that everything I did was like social masturbation, and so now all I’ve really got going for me is that I’m really good at interacting with myself and that hardly anyone else does it the way I can do it.

But, anyway, all I meant to say is that I’ve been playing Magic all night, and that I have to remember to send some cards to Rabi’s brother later this week.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/11/6905888/

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No one other than my mother can be blamed for my inefficient packing skills. Not only is the woman a last minute packer, but she packs two whole suitcases and a carryon and a purse for five days down the shore. I kid you not. So, four t-shirts (two short-sleeved, two long), one polo shirt, two shirts for layering, one dress shirt, four pair of pants, two pair of pajama pants, one pair of shorts, an extra pair of shoes, six pair of socks and five pair of underwear isn’t overkill for two and a half days, right? Right??


Oh, just shut the hell up. I’ll be in the next room repacking.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/10/6310578/

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Everything is slightly under control. Or, i keep telling myself that. Whether it’s true or not is not going to matter until Tuesday because i am escaping Philadelphia for the weekend. It’s quite insane, actually, but it’s just about the only insane thing i’ve tried to do since i got out of my own house, so i’m enjoying it. Meanwhile, my mother wants to know when i’m leaving. When i’m getting back. What my flight numbers are. The number the place where i’m staying. What train am i taking to the airport. My answer to her went something like: Hello, get the fuck out of my life.

Typically i can tell her to back off and she does – this is a typical dance for us. But, lately i’ve really let my guard slip and suddenly my mother is in my face every time we see each other. All i let slip is that i’m going though a slightly depressive few weeks (which i’ve been having on and off for years and have never been so stupid to say anything about it to her), and then she sees the tiniest pipe in the world sitting on our table and suddenly every question is to the Nth degree. And, so, here i am whining to you about it instead of doing my Creative Writing Homework.

I just… hate her in a lot of ways. Aside from how awfully retarded my social growth was, i am a perfectly capable 20 year old … i hold down a huge academic scholarship, i’ve had a regular job ever since i started school two years ago, and this is my second year living on my own in an apartment without really asking her for any help with money. And, what really gets me, is that she has no concept of any of this… if i tell her that i can’t see her on a Wednesday because i have so much work due for Thursday she just stares at me with these blank eyes asking “Well, this will only take an hour or two.” If i complain that books are too damned expensive this term she tries to slip me twenties all day, but is then amazed when i was under the impression that she was going to buy me a package of toilet paper at Walmart.

Same old shit. Going to college in Philadelphia was at once the best idea and the biggest mistake i ever made. I wish so hard that i had chosen Boston instead, and then i’d be far away from her grasp and she couldn’t help but believe i was capable because she wouldn’t be able to lay a hand on me. But, here she is always able to track me down and find the chinks in my armor, no matter how small.


Sure, that’s what mom’s are for. Excuse me for not appreciating it just this once.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/10/6288825/

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Which would you rather do? : Blithely inform your mother that you want to see a psychiatrist about potential clinical depression or Blithely ignore your mother as she examines your roommates pipe and asks what she uses it to smoke.


Well, i’m a lucky little fuck, cause i got to do both today.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/10/6257546/