Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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2007 Song of the Day #5 – Love Me, Love Me Not

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I don’t typically let my songs incubate for very long. If I don’t finish writing a song within a few days, or don’t record it within the next month or two, chances are I won’t wind up playing it very often.

My first new song of 2007 turned that whole philosophy on its ear.

Much like “Standing,” it woke me up from sleep to jot it down. Only this one was much more stubborn – the lyrics didn’t have a consistent meter, and I could hear only a few pieces of the music. It seemed unremarkable, especially for something thar had dragged me out of bed.

It didn’t feel unremarkable, though. It felt like something real and solid. A song that said something, because I had something to say to myself.

I refused to give up on it. Every day I came home to tinker. After a few weeks the chorus made its way up the neck from open chords to the 14th fret. A month later I was still tinkering with the lyrics, and the first day of spring found me changing up the rhythms and transitions.

I’m happy to say that the song survived that whole ordeal, and I debuted it at my Melange Theatre performance last Friday. And now I am debuting it to the world at large with its first proper demo recording. It’s far from perfection, but it’s already a long way from where it began.

“Love Me, Love Me Not” is the song of the day.

Gimme a Head With Hair

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I am emerging from my ugly phase.

Last trip to the hairdresser – just for a trim – my shampooer warned me. “You’re going to go through an ugly phase,” she matter-of-facted at me, before admonishing, “and don’t go cutting it off just because you’re in the ugly phase.”

Because, cutting it off means my hair has won our little battle.

The ugly was seductively convincing. Hair in the eyes. Messing with complexion. Head is too fat now to look good with long hair, anyhow.

The litany was in full-effect last week, and it became clear I would have to beat my hair into submission before it would end. So, I did something unprecedented (which cutting it off wouldn’t be, if we recall the Mohawk and other such endeavors). I walked into the bathroom, lined up my styling products, and took out Elise’s curling iron, hairdryer, and an array of brushes. An hour later, I emerged with feathered hair.

You have to understand that – long or short – hairstyling with anything other than a hand and some mousse is against my personal aesthetic. In high school I grew my hair into a pony-tail to avoid styling, and subsequently chopped it all off for the same reason. Every haircut I’ve had has been motivated by wanting to have to style less.

But, desperate times call for the most desperate of measures, and so style I did. My hair is perhaps a wee long for framing my face with feathers, so I wound up slightly more Farah Fawcett than John Travolta from Kotter. Before bed I carefully wrapped my work in a series of bandannas to preserve it for the night, and the next day I sported stylish (though slightly flattened) feathering at work. And, I didn’t feel ugly!

I have yet to reattain the epitome of my prettiness, but I have escaped the seductive “cut it off” allure of the uglies to inch ever closer to unspeakably desirable rock star look i’m cultivating.

Yeah, I Could Have Told You That

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Also skimmed from CNN’s headlines, a fairly lightweight article about male eating disorders. It’s nice to see this topic getting covered somewhere other than daytime talkshows, but the lightness of this coverage only serves to emphasize the virtually nonexistant support system for men with eating disorders.

Even years after the period where i was most destructively anorexic i am still incredibly suseptible to falling into unhealthy eating habits, and generally only avoid major problems by making a point to make light of my condition here and to my close friends, allowing my humor to let them know they should keep an eye on me.

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When i was younger TGI Fridays was a fun restaurant to go to; it was a slice of Americana, with red and white striped server shirts and electric blue drinks. It was a restaurant nice enough to consider “eating out” but cheap enough to go to with high school friends.

Tonight we were looking for that sort of bargain eating, and so the bunch of us attractive twenty-somethings drove to a Fridays in the city. In a nod to the TGIF uniform of my youth i was in the red striped shirt i had coveted for months, and upon arrival i had a fishbowl sized Sunset Strip in hand. Feeling attractive and pleasantly tipsy, we were seated.

You need to understand something about me and restaurants: i can’t focus on anything written on the menu. It’s a sort of site-specific ADD … too many people, too much movement, too much smoke and clinking glasses. Though i may peruse, i either have a specific favorite in mind or i just flip through and choose the most verbose description.

Here i should mention that Fridays, inexplicably, has joined forces with 7-11 to become part of the low-carb Atkins revolution. The way Atkins re-entered the zeitgest has left me bewildered, especially as i watch people throwing away the buns to eat twice the hamburger.

Does anyone see where this is headed? In my quick perusal i chose the most colorful picture, a chicken dish, and when it was (finally) brought to the table the waitress bellowed “Atkins Diet Chicken!” I laughed, heartily, that she had mistakenly brought this diet dish to our table. When she proffered it to me i joked, “Do i look like i would order the diet dish? Look at me?” The description had made mention that i could “save five carbs by leaving off the peppers,” i calmly explained, but i did not opt in. I had opted out of the Diet Chicken

I was sober now, steely and serious, as if the drink had never existed. I wasn’t on a diet, i told her. This was the third annoyance of the night, i stated coolly, on top of the pineapple in the drink and the slow service. I’d really just like to mention it to the manager. I don’t mean to be rude, it’s just that i’m not fat. I will explain it to your manager; i didn’t order a diet dish.

Or, well, maybe i did. I thought i had ordered the tasty looking chicken with cheese and broccoli. Instead, i inadvertently turned to the page, the one where we are all in on the hip trend, and we are all on the hip and trendy diet. It’s been around for years; South Beach was so mid-2003. I’m not really fat, it’s just these pants.

I delivered a brief but ultimately trite complaint to the manager, who offered to replace my broccoli with carb-rich mashed potatoes, and then silently choked down the food, ignoring my friends. I could hardly taste it, could not feel it in my mouth. Instead, i was feeling it sinking inside me, bloating my stomach, rising in my throat as soon as it left the back of my tongue. The room was suddenly contracted; too small, too loud, my side of broccoli shrub-like in it’s massiveness on the plate, my chicken the cardboard cover of a lean-cuisine box.

The conversation from the table across from me suddenly rose, punching through our table’s idle chatter. I heard the man speaking to the waitress (“Oh, make sure that i get the diet version of that beer. Make sure you take your time with it, i want you to bring it slow.”) and to the inexplicable pimply balloon-sculptor (“Can you make me a light balloon? It’s got to be thin. And can you give it red on the shirt? A really gay red.”)

From there it is a blur, screaming something over Lindsay’s head to the man across from me and his rambling reply floating back at me as i stood and pushed Ross out of the side of the booth, pausing only to throw down all of the large bills from my wallet. I was not gay. I wanted to leave. I was not fat. I wanted my non-descript flannel clothes back, and the underweight body from beneath them. I wanted my fingers flirting seductively with my epiglottis, head resting on the side of the bowl. I wanted to escape.

I walked around and around in the slowly drifting snow, 17th, Chestnut, Walnut, helping the small woman hail her cab, 16th, Chestnut, smiling at the strangers walking to and from the pricey bars, Market, calling Ross to ask him to get change for my big bills, lying easily, “No, no, the bus is only two blocks away,” 16th, 15th, Waiting to let the gorge slip solidly to the bottom of my stomach, the rage lie still.

I take my life for granted sometimes. I live, have lived for five years, in a calm bubble, where the only one judging me is myself. I have allowed my figure to fill out, supressed my irascible nature, embraced the wispy charm of my character, and just made sure to stay calm. Now i have a dozen dozen days of that left until my bubble is burst, one hundred and forty four days from here until i step off that stage into the real world. Everybody judges. Everybody hurts. Sometimes i need to open my mouth. I need to make myself happy a little more often.

I know that wasn’t especially interesting, but it’s what happened to me tonight. I’m always told not to apologize for my art, but it didn’t feel that artful. Thanks for reading. To cheer up, you should check out the bit about S&M in the last post.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2004/01/107440033006968402/

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my hair : my website’s layout :: my handwriting : my singing

That was the final post of my first day of blogging. Over three years ago i said that i would elaborate on it, but in the absence of any elaboration the post became a kind of private in-joke, a punchline with no setup.

Honestly, i forgot what i had meant to say. For three years the post has stared at me expectantly from the top of that first archive page, as if to say, “Haven’t you figured out yet?” Today i finally did.

This morning i watched a co-worker addressing an envelope, and i caught myself thinking his handwriting was unbearably sloppy. Not because it was illegible, or irregular, but because he did not use any straight lines. The side of his N bowed inwards; the cross of his J was like a wry grin.

In that moment i was reminded of the post, and i suddenly understood — both the post and how i can spend four hours of recording the vocals of just one song, never quite satisfied. It’s not that anything about his writing and my singing is incomprehensible, or incorrect. No. It’s the unintentional lack of precision. I dislike my singing because i scoop vowels and slur consonants without consciously meaning to — i just sing the way that i would speak. It’s not wrong, but it’s not on purpose either. It’s exactly the reason i cringed at my coworker’s version of “NJ” on the envelope – he didn’t have any straighter lines to offer it.

I used to covet good handwriting — perfect, font-like handwriting. I strove for perfection, writing my letters correctly, perfectly vertical, perfectly rounded. After a few years the perfection came with relative ease, so i allowed myself to slowly slip away from it. I began creating my own font, stylizing my fs and as, not because i was sloppy, or lazy, but because i was personalizing. Making it my own. Whereas, i cannot yet force my voice to be perfectly rounded or piercingly straight, so i cannot afford to blur its edges.

From there, it’s easy to complete the analogy that has been plaguing me for so long. My hair is something i used to be so apathetic to that i just let it grow, hanging down my neck in a nondescript tail or surrounding my face in a bushy halo. I was specifically against styling it an any way — it seemed to be besides the point. However, in college i started paying more attention. Now, though i tend to wait a few weeks too long to get a new haircut, i always look in the mirror before i walk out the door. My page’s layout is the perfectly analogous to this — it’s something i used to treat as transparent, but that i now detail carefully, if not often. It has a function: it is part of my appearance — the impression that i give off.

In short, at the time i hadn’t yet exercised control over my hair and my handwriting, and had just got the inkling that i would have the same issues with my layout and my voice. And, three years later, i feel as though i have mastered the former and am just now beginning to consciously control the latter.

Wow, i just freed up a few brain circuits that have been locked up for the majority of my collegiate career. I ought to do a crossword.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2003/09/106259765349467294/