Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand
by krisis
This term has been like living out of my own body … a show, being sick all the time, not doing well in class, having a girlfriend. Show’s over, i’m finally getting better, i’m trying to steer my classes in an upward direction. Which leaves one element messing with my equilibrium… Shit. I hate myself.
by krisis
My life weebles and wobbles but it just doesn’t fall down. I can’t explain it. Despite the most awful things happening, they always turn out for the best in the end.
My mother and i were essentially kicked out of our house at the end of my Junior year by the owners because they wanted to sell it. I had lived in that house for all but three years of my life. I refused to leave. My mother wanted to buy a nice little house somewhere verging on suburbia, but there was the small matter of my attending the best highschool in the state, which i would hardly have left just for senior year. In the end i convinced her to rent a house on the verges of South Philly, because i know that when she actually buys a place it should be one she loves, not one she settles for. It was all very depressing at the time, but Senior year wound up being one of the best of my life, despite all the shitty parts. I wound up living within walking distance of Gina and Anastasia, and i could actually take a shopping trip to South Street at my leisure. I had my own room on my own tiny third floor. Our kitchen was nice. I was happy.
Lots of other things have righted themselves over the years to keep my life going at its usual pace. I only got into a local university but they gave me lots of money and inexplicably wound up happy there. I almost didn’t find an apartment (chronicled at length in the first week of the archive) but wound up in a super-cheap and easily accessible one. But, life doesn’t always work out so perfectly. For some people, it doesn’t work out at all. I have too many friends who got into a local university and got zero money who are now unhappy and in debt. I know too many people who had to move home because they didn’t figure out where to live in time for the beginning of the semester. I know too many unhappy people.
Yesterday i confronted the fact that my smile might have finally become used up. For years and years i just glided through my occasional problems with a grin pasted onto my face, because they all got fixed eventually and life moved on. Suddenly i’m starting to realize that not everything fixes itself, and that i don’t know how much good cheer i really have left to get me through the bad spots
Imagine that… i’m 19 and just learning that “happily ever after” only really happens in fairy tales and first-date movies. I’ve never had to confront the possibility before; i always assumed that bad things only happened to people who weren’t thinking positively. Now i’m starting to realize that keeping a smile on my face isn’t the best defense, and that sometimes it cuts as cruelly as any situation i might be unsuspectingly plunged into. But my life is still all-good, and that scares me. No one is continually blessed. The gods only have so much attention to give.
by krisis
No one ever agrees with me, but i think people are at their most radiant when they first wake up in the morning. During the night your skelton sorta resets itself, and so does your face. When i look myself in the mirror in the AM i notice the corners of my mouth are higher than usual, and that the little laugh lines i’ve accumulated have smoothed themselves out. Of course, during the day i’ll pick all of that back up, and then some, but it’s nice to be a clean slate for a few minutes before life sets in.
Isn’t it frightening that i already have identifiable laugh lines on my face? I suppose they’re ultimately the sign of a happy life, but i’m not sure that i’m ready for wrinkles before the age of twenty. The alarm clock just went off really blaringly loud, which made me laugh for all of two seconds before the noise got to me and i turned the damn thing off. Matt and i are never here, and i can’t imagine when the alarm was set or for which of us, unless Matt was here yesterday and i totally missed him (which would be pretty funny). I’ve probably spent less time here than Matt in the last week, which is rather disturbing in and of itself. I swear… at this point we’re paying rent just to keep stuff in here.
by krisis
When i used to write songs they were my escape. I used to be able to say so much inside of them that never existed anywhere else. I was a rock star in my own head. I conducted my own interviews. I tracklisted my imaginary new album once every month. But, in the end it was just another hobby; none of my friends even really knew i was into it that seriously. I still pick it up every once and a while, when i hear a song from back then. All the lyrics are still on the internet somewhere, and the sounds too, at some forgotten webpage i could find on my lunch break if i spent a minute or two looking. Yeah, i used to write songs. It was fun.
by krisis
I’m old enough to have adventures now. I mean, people much younger than 19 have them, but i figure i should start now before i gain too much wisdom or weight to avoid them like the plague. I don’t have a car or a license, but i do have a bank account and a visa, so the two cancel each other out. I’m going to Florida in about a month to visit some family, and i’m thinking i should have an adventure down there. Maybe just hop on some public transportation and ride it across the county, and then walk back. Sure, that’s tame, but Florida is practically India by my standards. And that’s sorta the problem. Last year i was going to drive up to Niagara with some friends and go binge drinking in Canada, but i fell out with them so it fell through. Other friends of mine made that same trip later that year, but they didn’t even think to ask me. Of course not.