44th St

September 14, 2001 by krisis

Everything i write nowadays is toolong and verywordy. I can’t seem to help myself; i’m just not as omnipresently connected as i used to be and the things i have been wanting to say just build and build until they are no longer simple phrases or paragraphs. Do you remember when this used to be snap reactions to hardwood floors, or fuzzy butterflies swirling in my stomach and the awkwardness that always ensues as a result? Hardwood floors have turned into brick walls and sloped ceilings, but that special breed of butterfly does emerge from a cocoon every so often to do a loop-to-loop just beneath my esophagus. I’m just left wondering if it’s my intent, my writing, or my editing that changed along the way. Obviously it would have to be a little bit of all three… but, what don’t i talk about now that you used to expect to hear from me? I’d really like to know.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/09/5693168/

September 14, 2001 by krisis

Life is conspiring against me posting to blogger. First there was the problem of only having one working phone jack in the apartment, but i solved that by dangling off the roof with a fifty foot phone wire a few nights ago. Then, last night i arrived home with posts precomposed in my head only to find that at same point in walking up and down the steps with my computer monitor two of the pins in its plug had been bent and so it wouldn’t connect to my computer. This hurdle involved a one hour surgery performed with metal banjo picks and a nail clipper, but my computer was somehow rendered functional again afterwards. However, that got me absolutely nowhere seeing as our mysterious phone line was finally turned off, leaving me stranded in my apartment with no means of telecommunication whatsoever.

Sorry, just felt the need to vent.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/09/5691968/

September 9, 2001 by krisis

And now, four hours of riding septa complete with soundtrack thanx to resourceful roommates who own better electronic devices than i do. Did i mention four hours of riding septa? Am i supposed to be excited? Blagh.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/09/5573422/

September 7, 2001 by krisis

My life is an extended commercial break in the middle of a lazy Sunday night movie… i keep expecting the show to go on at the end of each content-less interval but all that appears is another insipid advertisement for what i should be doing with my life.

Every day this week I’ve left the main building at six – because i spend the latter hour of my day keeping up with my internet addiction after everyone else has left the office. When i exit the building i am always thinking “beautiful weather, no commitments, no computer to tie me down, only life ahead.” I walk the nearly two miles back to my apartment with my face towards the setting sun and when i arrive i routinely (i have a routine, already) walk to the fourth floor to drop my keys and shoes, back to the third floor to wash my hands and face, back up to the fourth floor to get changed, and back down to the third floor for a quick sip of orange juice. And then the night extends away from me in seemingly infinite repetitions of walking up and down the stairs and lying on my back staring up at the lantern lights strung across the sloped ceiling above my bed.

Last night i idly surfed through my oldest backup cd for projects i had left unfinished for a half hour before swallowing 50mg of Benadryl, ostensibly because the pollen count has been obscenely high but really because i would much rather be asleep then awake. The slumber came quick and easy and i woke up this morning with ample time to shower and get my large iced nonfat vanilla latté, and here i am back in work, waiting for the last clip in this endless commercial break so that i can get back to the show.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/09/5540873/

September 5, 2001 by krisis

Last night i didn’t get back to the apartment until nearly ten, having gone for well over half a day without much of a moment’s rest at all. I wearily made it up the two flights of stairs to our parlor, took a few minutes to exchange pleasantries with the roommates, mounted the third (steepest) set of stairs to my bedroom and then rolled into my bed. I was nearly out like a light while from downstairs i was being asking if i wanted to walk down the block and get some sushi, and i have no recollection of anyone returning with a meal in hand.

It occurs to me as my first week living with Linsday and Erika (and, for the moment, Jack) wears on that sharing a house with me must be a terribly surprising. Before Jack and Linsday moved into Erika’s old apartment (the Player’s House) they had been there so often that they were roommates by extension long before they were ever roommates by virtue of having a key. They were known quantities. While they surely had funny quirks about the kitchen or the bathroom or keeping tidy, the experience of sharing space with them was not a revelation of any kind.

On the other hand, there is me… alternately extroverted and introverted at parties, sporadically but dedicatedly a participant in theatre, and a music enthusiast who refuses to concede his theoretical superiority of intelligence. With every tiny interaction i have with Erika in the kitchen or while knocking on Linsday’s bedroom door i realize that anything i could be doing would be a surprise to them, because i don’t know what they might be willing to expect based on what they’ve known of me so far. Tiny things like my willingness to attack the dishes if asked, or the controlled cyclone of my room, or my quick retreat to the seclusion of loud music and a game of Snood before bed… all of them seem strange enough to me but i can’t imagine trying to fit them into the strangely perceived context of me that they must already have.

The other side of this thought process is that any given set of roommates alters one’s behaviour in a different kind of way. Kenny kept me cheery and social, Victor left me territorial and bitchy, Matt trained me to apathetic and sedentary. Each of these influences weren’t exactly surprises, since my roommates were unflappable, disrespectful, and disinterested in that order. So, i’m wondering how my new housemates are seeing me (especially Linsday, who i’ve been around the most both in and out of the apartment) and how i’ll subtly change as the year goes on.

Isn’t it funny how i’m sitting here waiting to find out who i am? Maybe it just seems amusing from the inside…

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/09/5501530/