Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

mom

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Farah Fawcett was on Letterman last night, and i am absolutely convinced that she was stoned off her gourd. As her behavior ranged to the more absurd and erratic during her chat with Dave i found myself mentally ticking off the things she might and might not be on: much too orderly and coherent to be drunk, much too collected for methamphetamines, not distracted enough for hallucinogens. During the first commercial break i pretty much decided on marijuanna.

You have to wonder what goes through Dave’s head when he has rowdy guests on, whether they’re drugged or not. I’d wager that first he weighs whether it’s even appropriate to continue interviewing the person, and then whether he should cut it short, and then whether their rowdiness (or substance abuse) makes them funny … in which case they should be booked again immediately. I’m not sure where he was in the decision making process with Farah last night… i don’t think she posed much of a threat to anyone between giggles and confused looks out into the audience, and Marv Albert happened to be there in case she came across the desk at Dave. Of course, there’s always the theory that she was overwhelmed by her desire for the Dave/Marv combo…


I usually don’t watch late-nite teevee, but my mother called me at quarter to midnite to inform me that Garbage was going to be on Letterman, because my mother is attuned to my tastes that much. Garbage was decent; they seriously need another woman on stage to do the harmony from the new album (and it could never hurt to have another instrumentalist around). As for me, i’ve been working on backend stuff, give me a day or two to get my act together. In the meantime, much thanx to joannou and tangled for their links. Attention is always appreciated :p

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/10/6214296/

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Yesterday was impossibly full… two or three different days all slipped deceptively into the packaging of one. Shopping turned into lunch, which turned into a deep conversation about what made me who i am, which turned into a concert for my mom that ended with a concert that pulled out notes and chords from places i’ve never been before. That was one day… happy deep family day. Then there was my day to myself, with guitar and internet and music and napping and food. And, then, came my day with friends, which typically started out happy and fun and quickly descended into misery. I’m usually introverted enough towards the middle and end of big parties, but this time i had headphones with me so i just turned on the good bits and let everyone at the party do their miserable little social dance to the sounds between my ears. Eventually i got tired of waiting for the people i wanted to be with (the story of my life) and i went out on the front step and turned it up all the way until finally i set off for the apartment.

So many blogging things happened in there… things i’ll have to say eventually for me to make more sense. Somehow i explained to my mother exactly why i like to be thin and why i like the girls who i like and why i have to be successful at something and she understood it all with this wane little smile and tears welling in her eyes. I can’t imagine what it must have been like seeing me from the outside… i wanted to thank her for everything and so when she asked me to play “under my skin” i shut my eyes and opened up and poured things into it that she had never even heard before, and afterwards she sortof just stared at me and i was just sweating and breathing and smiling because somehow i opened the song up again just when i thought i had used it all up.


It’s hard to quantify 20 years in any kind of way, but somewhere in between my nearly mathematical proof that i’ve never had a male role model before Peter Mulvey and my gut-wrenching concert i think i was having a happy birthday. The only happy one out of the three.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/09/5862553/

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My mother can be very amusing when not taken in large amounts, but if you introduce any sort of negative energy in between us it just bounces back and forth and eventually we’re just like an amplifier overloading with feedback and blowing out. But, the inbetween bits are more side-splitting than ear-spitting.

Specifically, there was the two of us sitting on the floor in front of our stereo singing the harmony to “Band on the Run” (even though she’s been a snob about Wings for as long as i can remember) (and, also, us doing the flip-out vocals to “Oh, Darling” later in the car because, yes, we are Paul McCartney addicts), my showing her how to operate the self-checkout lane in Superfresh (and saying “Okay, rolls, *dramatic pause* this is where it gets a little complicated”), watching her trying to coax my cat out from under my bed because he forgets who i am (“It’s Peter, the one who used to squeeze you and chase you and torment you a lot. You remember him, don’t you?” “We’re trying to get him to come out, mom.”), her shocked (and amusing) exclamation of “And exactly how am i supposed to make breaded eggplant parmigiana without eggs?” when i asked if we could have Rabi over to eat something credibly Italian, and especially this introductory exchange:

Peter – [incredulously] When did you get so… blonde?

Mom – [blithely] And your hair is so dark! And curly! Did you dye it?

Peter – [sweetly] Nice to see that you’ve managed to forget what i look like while you were down the shore for two months. Did you at least bring me back some salt water taffy?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/08/5287048/

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Back in the real world, my lease ends a week from today, and i think it just fully hit me today that all of my things have to be mobile by the middle of next week. The result was a two hour cleaning and packing binge that has so far gotten half of my cds, half of my clothing, and half of my books put away. The only problem seems to be that i have run out of places to put things, and so hopefully i’ll be going to walmart later to rectify the situation. Anyhow, today i am putting down the deposit on the new apartment (finally), and seeing my mother for nearly the first time all summer, and apparently i have decided to blog about lots of uninteresting things in an attempt to drive you away before the anniversary celebration on Sunday. Run!

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/08/5277090/

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My mother had a sort of quiet depression about her in April when the decision letters started coming. To this day I feel bad for her because she didn’t know what to expect, and i think she had been convinced that i stood a chance at all of these schools because my all important gpa/sat was above their tiny averages. Despite my possession of these all-important numbers, one by one those important four rejection letters trickled in, and every one was another blow struck against that pedestal she put me higher and higher on every time some trivial score came back to us in the mail and it was a whole shade higher than she had expected on the tiny blue ETS graph. She threw out a wait list letter from one of the schools without ever even telling me because she knew that i would find a way, and that it would just hurt my pride to be left hanging by a school i might not even make it into even if we could forget the expense for a moment.

Finally we came down to two serious offers from colleges we’d been neglecting all along, and somehow she fought as hard as i’ve ever seen her fight, and after the dust had cleared i at least wound up with some pride(money) and a seat. She knew by then that the whole process was some sort of hilarious joke aimed at me and at every teacher and family member that had ever projected glorious dreams of schools vying for me and scholarships raining down from the sky. She had put herself through school and kept me smart and safe and got me into the best public high school in the state and saw my plays and bought me a guitar and paid for my ap classes and drove me to PSATs. And, all for what, in the end?

All for Drexel, of course. But, we never really said that, and we never really do. Drexel is an amazing school that’s affording me the chance to mold my own future as i choose my co-op jobs and literally redraw the curriculum as i go. But, we never intended for me to go to Drexel. No one ever did. It’s all been blind faith and dumb luck all along.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/08/5119735/