Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

day in the life

28 years, 51 weeks: pt. 3

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Wednesday, September 15, 2010. 28 years, 51 weeks, 1 day.

Wednesday started before I intended it to. I awoke over and over through the night, seemingly never completely asleep.

It’s the season for it – the two weeks of fall where my allergies activate overnight. Whether dream or reality, it seemed like I was reawakening multiple times each minutes, sniffling and coughing. Once – or, maybe multiple times? – I shambled to the bathroom to swallow a decongestant, hoping it would take the edge off my misery.

I felt like miles of bad road by the time I officially “awoke,” though I’m not convinced I was ever completely asleep. For a moment I had the phone in my hand, considering calling out, but it wasn’t worth the misery of a double-hard day on Thursday leading up to my gig.

I hit my desk feeling like death warmed over. I must have looked the part too, because none of my co-workers offered any words of encouragement.

What one of them did offer was an iced coffee. [Read more…] about 28 years, 51 weeks: pt. 3

28 years, 51 weeks: pt. 2

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Tuesday, September 14, 2010. 28 years, 51 weeks.

Tuesday was a day. That’s the most positive thing about it I can muster. That, and work never reached the temple-pounding stress of Monday. I even left on time.

At home I desperately attempted to render some order to the studio. My gear had been in disarray since our house concert, with mic stands and guitars strewn through every room in the house. The back-to-back rehearsal and gig the prior weekend had scattered things even further. I was finding microphones in couch cushions and quarter inch cables under my bed.

Still tidying, from my attic window I spotted Gina walk across our driveway and up the path to our door. Having shed my work clothes I wore only underwear as I flung open the window and screen and hollered, “Be right down!”

Laundry, I reminded myself, you need to do laundry for the gig.

I barely managed to get myself into a pair of jeans by the time I hit the front door and Gina smiled, accustomed to finding me in states of half dress ever since she lived in the apartment above mine in 2001. [Read more…] about 28 years, 51 weeks: pt. 2

28 years, 51 weeks: pt. 1

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Monday, September 13, 2010. 28 years, 50 weeks, 6 days.

I woke up and immediately felt unprepared for the week ahead.

That’s not the kind of way you should feel as soon as you open your eyes in the morning. Especially not on a Monday. It should be prohibited as an emotional state.

What’s more appropriate? Maybe, “It’s morning!” possibly amending “Already?” Or, “I’m tired.” Even the old standby, “I’m hungry.”

Those are the sorts of feelings to have upon waking up. Lingering dread is more the sort of feeling you want to avoid. [Read more…] about 28 years, 51 weeks: pt. 1

Blackouts

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Today I woke up at six.

Yesterday and the day before I woke up at six. On Saturday it was close to seven. Friday, six fifteen.

Do you sense a trend?

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In our old house sleep was a black box.

I remember the conversation we had when we first moved in. Three bedrooms, and only the front and back ones were big enough to hold E’s queen-sized bed.

“Well, the front is bigger – more room around the bed, and for beaureaus and things. But it’s at the front of the house – streelights, cars passing, people talking, kids playing – it will all be in the bedroom with us.”

We wound up in the back. Smaller, cozier, and immune to all that street noise. Except, the backyard world of our home had its own noise – yapping dogs and yellow security lights, always on watch.

We adapted. I slept some nights with headphones, or earplugs. Our curtains were blackouts, thick and inpenetrable. Eventually E bought me a sunrise clock complete with chirping birds, so I could still wake up with some semblance of morning in my life – even in the black box.

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People joked that I would be freaked out by the quiet at our new house. They weren’t wrong. Everything is silent at night (save for crickets), with everyone tucked into their discrete living rooms hundreds of feet from our door.

Sometimes I feel sheepish even playing guitar, before Elise reminds me that they could easily be doing that (or louder!) in their own homes. Such as is the silent expanse of our street.

Our bedroom is in the front of the house. No earplugs. Yes, blackout curtains, but not drawn carefully across every inch of every window from frame to frame. It’s just out of habit – to make sure no moonlight falls across my body as I drift to sleep.

The difference is the morning. Still quiet. Still no traffic. Yet in place of the sunrise clock I have … sunrise.

It turns out, I’m a morning person. For five years I had fooled myself, because my tiny electric sun was no replacement for an entire world of delicately spun light.

Tomorrow I will probably wake up at six.

get elevated

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I wrote that last post on the El.

For those of you not acquainted with Philadelphia, we have exactly two and a half brands of subway. One travels north to south. One travels east to west. One spends half its distance traveling from the center of the city to the west, and then emerges from the ground.

(I always laugh when people find the Philly subway system confusing. They’re named unambiguously and barely make a turn. Paris – now that’s confusing.)

The “El” is short for the Market Frankford Elevated Line, the east to west subway named thus because it runs along Market Street & Frankford Avenues and because after it exits the central part of its route in either direction it runs along elevated tracks. Creaky, red iron, elevated tracks that tower overhead, dripping rain that smacks as it hits your scalp.

Nothing in the world skeeves me out like the El. In fact, for several years at the old house I boycotted it entirely. However, it’s a reality of traveling to and from the new house.

The grime of it is paralyzing. The navy blue floor is encrusted with untold months of flotsam at every crack and corner. The blue seats are not plastic but a sponge-like blue fuzz that seems engineered to attract and retain dirt.

Then there are the people – the degenerate, tactless people. I have heard of and witnessed people doing things on the El that you would never witness elsewhere in public – let alone on public transit. Vandalism. Performance art. Investigations of personal hygiene. Sex acts.

The charming combination of environmental grossness and personal grossness is enhanced by the claustrophobic layout of each car. To a New Yorker – accustomed to their wide, hard-plastic benches and center-of-aisle poles – it probably seems like an amusement park ride.

A tiny, disgusting amusement park ride.

Whenever I ride a carefully tuck my limbs into my body like an Olympic diver, trying to avoid contact with something or something that will give me syphilis or leprosy.

Carefully tucked into myself, I pull out my laptop, and log in remotely to work for 29 blocks of elevation, before shutting down and doing my best to hold my breath and stay absolutely still for 10 blocks of subway.

The first thing I do every day in the office is wash my hands.