Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Archives for March 2002

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While cruising around on Meg’s Not So Soft tonight my attention was drawn to a story concerning college apartments and seating rules. Having recently had a number of guests in my house that easily outstrips the available number of seats in both the parlor and kitchen, i am well aware of our accepted seating policy: we function on the “fives” rule, where seats are up for grabs unless the person vacating calls fives, which will reserve the seat for a span no longer than five minutes. This doesn’t always leave everyone happy with the seating situation, but not too many people complain.

Meg’s college apartment apparently only featured two pieces of furniture suitable for planting one’s bottom on, and so it was strictly every man and woman for themselves. It is here that her story begins…

I can’t really say anything else without ruining the story … just trust me on this one. As if Meg isn’t funny enough without surefire oddball material to work with.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2002/03/75039207/

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At some point during which i was surely raving about my website and how much fun i have writing for it and meeting people through it, Elise decided to set up house on BlogSpot, though she didn’t tell me about it until i mentioned something to the effect of that she could only get sexier if she — in addition to being incredibly intelligent, acting as an op on a MUDD via telnet, and playing a bit of guitar — had a blog. Of course she did, because her sexiness rates off the scale, and she’s actually had some really sparkling moments of blogging in the month she’s been writing so far. Funny anecdotal entries from math class, reminiscences reminiscent of the stylings of Martha & Rabi, and entirely flattering opposite-view accounts of things i’ve mentioned us doing here.


Without much discussion we decided that my linking to her, via sidebar or upon any mention of her name, would result in too much strangeness to be worthwhile. As such, our two respective blogs exist in entirely separate universes… while hers is anonymous in name and design, mine is here for all to see along with over a year of context, songs, and occasional photographs. Somewhere in that distinction, i have found that i rely on her accounts of our collective life to remind me of what has gone by rather than my own. My reluctance to air actual personal details aside, i am simply uncomfortable with making more than an obscure mention of a day spent in New Hope, marathon sessions of Secret of Mana, and her having fallen asleep in my bed.

I can peg this reluctance for you exactly; it’s a fear of us winding up anything like Selina and i did last year. Rereading entries from the two months we were dating reveals a sickening half-and-half mixture of short-sighted starry-eyed rambling and oddly prescient airings of my complaints. As the relationship lurched towards its final implosion what i said on the page turned my actual words and emotions into something akin to a third wheel — i was trapped between half-fictionalizing what was happening only to be held to the letter of what i said, or relating it in actuality only to be skewered for saying what i felt.


Of course, i can’t honestly compare a healthy and happy relationship to whatever it was Selina and i were drifting through last winter, but with that as my only other experience i’m sometimes left unable to do anything but that. If i had three or five or ten girlfriends’ reactions to my page to go on, i would be less hesitant to chronicle more of my current daily life here. But, i only have one perspective, and a skewed one at that, which means i’m left reading sparkling details of what i’ve been doing with my life over on BlogSpot and i can’t even give you a link to them so you know where i’m coming from.

Watching favourites Shaun and Alison battle with personal disclosures lately has inspired little faith on my part, but the different enthralling ways that they describe those experiences have lead me to realize that if i don’t talk about them at all i’m not only cheating myself, but i’m not being interesting at all.

Speaking of not being interesting at all, i can’t believe you just read all of that :p . Or, am i all wrong; is it not the obscured mentions or the explicit ones that interest you, but instead my inner-turmoil on the matter? I suppose i’m just stuck on how to best portray this particular crushing aspect of my life to you. Dare i ask… any thoughts?

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2002/03/75038525/

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The lack of motivation i’m exhibiting today is truly astonishing. First off, i definitely lacked any drive to get out of my bed … my eventual departure from its warmth and comfort was a combination of having to use the bathroom and falling off the side of my bed. These events had no correlation to any amount of ringing and/or screaming provided by my alarm every forty-seven minutes, which meant it was already past the time i said i would show up in work to hang out (and maybe actually work). In Peter-logic, being late to something is typically an excuse to blow it off altogether, and three hours later i found myself planted in front of my computer on the twenty-seventh page of Wonder Woman images from across the web in a highly whimsical and misguided campaign to redesign the site using Golden Era Wonder Woman art. Having failing in that endeavor of misguided ambition, i decided to cruise aimlessly on Amazon, which for me has become nearly a Olympic event. From stationary i already own to a video game i have absolutely no reason to buy to reading negative reviews of a book i already definitely like based on the four or five times i’ve read it. Somewhere in there i ate a cold piece of pizza and wrote a check for our electric bill

Yes, it’s non-stop excitement here. A virtual house of fun. Excuse me while i organize my guitar picks into ROY G BIV order with subdivisions for gauge and manufacturer…

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2002/03/75038470/

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Asking an adventurous pesco-vegetarian, a finicky omnivore, and the master of Lipton side dishes and grilled cheese to decide amongst themselves what meal they can collectively cook and eat is somewhere between comedy and challenge. Last Tuesday Laurel came over to make dinner with Kat and I, and after a limited amount of fussing we wound up taking a stab at a spinach quiche recipe that my mother and i have been making for years now. The quiche met all of our pre-requisites … meatless, cheesy, and relatively basic in preparation. We added a side order of perogies and suddenly we had a healthy (and rather yummy) meal assembled within the span of an hour. While serving up the food i lamented that i wanted a cookbook that was “Vegetarian, but with meat. You know, like, a cookbook for lapsed and reformed vegetarians.”


We all got a laugh out of my meandering description of the perfect cookbook, and yesterday while wandering in and out of used book stores in New Hope with Elise i actually found what i was looking for. Almost Vegetarian is a smartly compiled book that veers between rare herbivore delicacies and more modest meaty fare, peppered throughout with tips on advanced preparation and vegetable shopping in green ink. I bought it immediately, for a surprising eight dollars, considering it’s in absolutely perfect condition.


I love those coincidental moments that life offers up, as though a bookstore was fated to carry a particular book on a certain day just because i was too inarticulate after baking for nearly an hour to describe what my ideal cookbook would really feature. Chalk one up for serendipity, i suppose.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2002/03/75036195/

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As quickly as this strange week began it ended with Elise and I fitting two guitars into her backseat ontop of a puzzle of luggage piled ontop of Kat and Jason. I was back up the stairs before they pulled away… maybe in a rush to attempt to write it all down, or maybe not really wanting to see them all leave.

The plan started out simply enough. Kat had no intentions of flying back to California for break, and instead was going to split her time between Jason’s oft-mocked farm somewhere else in Pennsylvania, and Elise’s in New Jersey. The plan was for her to crash here for a night or two inbetween destinations.

Of course, i know better than anyone else that plans change, and then you make other plans. When initial Jason-related plans fell through Kat decided she’d spend a few extra days here, and then Elise decided that she didn’t really want to go home for more than a day or so, which meant that Kat and Elise were effectively staying in my apartment for the entirety of the week. Add Jason driving in to Philadelphia on four separate days to hang out and Kat’s friend Nika flying in from California yesterday morning, and we had a house chock full of people.

Even with my normal roomies and all of their various guests here at any time, i never feel like this house is full. They are rarely my guests, even if they’re my friends, and so i can float in and out of their conversations on a whim to retreat back to my room and play guitar, blog, or sleep. This was different… not only because all of the guests were mine, but because Lindsay and Erika were largely absent for the rest of the week. The result was the bizarro perception that Kat & Elise were my roommates … they have their own roommate interactions down to a science after six months in the dorms, Elise and i have our own special back and forth banter, and Kat and i have a comically natural ease around each other.

So it was a week of living outside of my life while being directly in the middle of it … a week of inside out. A week of making breakfast and dinner, and calling to say when i might be home, and running to the grocery store because we had drank all of the milk. A week of belting out Ani songs with Kat for hours in a row, and of Elise making wry commentary on … well, on just about every silly little thing i’m prone to do on a day to day basis.

Everything’s back to normal now… everyone’s back from their various Spring Break exploits, sitting in my living room basking in the glow of the credits of Jay and Silent Bob. And, you know, for a minute i was a little bit jealous of the fact that none of them spent the entirety of the week in Philadelphia. But, honestly, i had a vacation from my day-to-day existence too, and i didn’t have to pay, fly, or drive to get to it.


My apologies for the many silences i’ve left you with in the last week — hopefully i’ll be back to normal starting tomorrow. If you can call this normal ;)

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2002/03/75034035/