• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

  • Archive
  • DC Guides
    • DC New 52
    • DC Events
    • DC Rebirth
    • Batman Guide
  • Marvel Guides
    • Omnibus & Oversize Hardcover DB
    • Marvel Events
  • Star Wars Guide
    • Expanded Universe Comics (2015 – present)
    • Legends Comics (1977 – 2014)
  • Valiant Guides
  • Contact!

adulthood

Baby I Can Drive Your Car

April 18, 2011 by krisis

This morning I was on the slowest possible trolley.

It made me think about travel powers, how we take our limitations for granted, and how no one can change that but ourselves.

.

In defense of my parking, that was the first time I had ever driven an SUV and I didn’t really understand the concept of its turn radius.

I drove a lot this past week.

I drove us into the city to hang out with friends. I drove Nan’s massive shuttle bus of a vehicle to pick up our fine dinner of Chinese food. I drove a tipsy E home at midnight in blinding rain.

(Which is an absolutely perfect situation to learn how to drive on a highway, and don’t let anyone tell you any different. The rumble strip is there for a reason, you know.)

My recent time behind the wheel has given me a chance to contemplate how I’ve limited my life around not being able to drive. I buy my essentials in bulk, since I can’t drive myself to the grocery store. I’m perennially absent from parties – especially ones at any distance – unless I can crash with someone else.

Even music – music – my number one commitment outside of staying married and holding down a job I enjoy – is limited by non-driving. I don’t go for gigs outside of Center City. I don’t look at concert listings outside of Philly. I assume I have to buy all of my friends’ new LPs online because I’m not going to make it out to their shows.

Of course, that all seems pretty normal. It’s been my life for my whole life. My non-driving was a serious commitment, right up there with my not watching TV, not eating meat, and not acknowledging the existence of Miley Cyrus. It was a big part of my identity.

It was also practical. And I didn’t have the money for a car, or for car insurance. I didn’t have the time to constantly circle for parking spots when we lived in South Philly. And for a long time I didn’t even have a car to learn on, so the entire point was moot.

Really, me not driving was for the best.

.

Back when I lived most of my life inside of City of Heroes I had a similar limitation: I wouldn’t take a “travel power.”

Most superheroes have them. Superman can fly. Spider-Man swings from rooftops. Batman has a mobile. Nightcrawler teleports – the whole point of him is travel! In City of Heroes every hero could choose a travel power at level 14 – flying, super-leaping, teleporting, or having super-speed.

Nightcrawler’s mutant power is teleportation. At the point that your entire super-power is all about travelling, would you even bother to get your driver’s license?

All seriously cool powers, right? But, my main superhero gal was meant to be a normal human being. Plus, why waste a power on moving around when I could be… you know, more SUPER. SUPERER!

I was super. I was a serious superhero that could kick the ass of anything near my level. But you know what? I was slow. It took me forever to get to the place where I needed to be super. Teammates were constantly standing around waiting for me.

It didn’t bother me at all … until I finally broke down and learned to fly, at level 35. It was awesome. Everything was faster. I got to PLAY the game more, instead of just jogging around the game. Within a day I was saying, “Why the hell did you all wait for me all of that time? You should have given up on me and made me learn to fly!”

They all cross their arms (really, there was an emote for that) and said, “You SAID you weren’t interested in flying. You SAID you were happy.”

.

I don’t have my license yet, but my increasing confidence in the car means I just need to wrangle up a licensed driver if I want to go for a ride. I drove to a party I would have never made it to in time on SEPTA. I got new prescriptions on a weekend, without wasting a lunch break on them!

I drove the Nan-Tank to get Chinese food like it was nothing, electing not to dwell on the fact that it was my first time driving a car other than my own, and it was in flood conditions.

(“Just think,” Nan pointed out with glee, “if we weren’t in [the Nan-Tank] that wall of water we just kicked up would have swallowed your entire car!”)

(I can neither confirm nor deny if that was followed by a subtle “yee-haw!”)

As it turns out, real life isn’t entirely different than City of Heroes, except I wasn’t stubborn enough to wait until I turned 35 to learn to drive. In both places I insisted I spent my time, effort, and money on the most high quality parts of my life and not letting anyone convince my otherwise.

That’s great when it comes to not wasting money on cable TV or never having heard a note from Miley’s lips, but not when it hamstrings me from doing even more of the high quality things I like to do.

Soon I will be a sure enough parallel parker to obtain my lisence, and then that housebound, SEPTA-reliant portion of my life that I’ve always taken for granted will be over. I can go to parties. I can go on a vacation alone! I can go on a road trip!

Odds are you probably have your own travel power, but maybe you have some other limitation you’re taking for granted. Do you have the power to eliminate it? How would your life be better without it?

Or, is it there for a reason – like paying for cable television would just give me a pointless way to waste my money and time?

Filed Under: thoughts Tagged With: adulthood, City of Heroes, driving, isolation, nan, Nightcrawler, travel, X-Men

28 years, 51 weeks: intro

September 20, 2010 by krisis

It is six thirty-five in the morning, and I am on my way to work to begin raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity for two hours before doing my actual job.

I slept about three hours last night. I have eight-hundred more words due on a freelance assignment before midnight tonight and then rehearsal for the next two nights. I’ll have Thursday night to myself, unless I go out to see the show I’d like to see. Somewhere in there I have to fold some laundry and edit and upload a few gigabytes of videos for three different bands.

All that, and turn 29, on Wednesday.

Sometimes I don’t know how I’m supposed to do it – be this thing that I so desperately want to be. Like some Sisyphean Looney Toons sketch, I feel like I’m constantly plugging leaks in a giant dam only to have a new one spring for each I’ve stopped.

Can I be a successful professional in good shape with a happy marriage, an evening music career, a well-kept home, and writing gigs on the side?

Last week I tried to do it all. I was moderately successful, but it meant I was too busy to blog about it at the time. Does it defeat the purpose of being moderately successful if I don’t have time to blog about it?

Well, I’m making the time now. I’ll be moderately successful, damnit.

Filed Under: thoughts Tagged With: adulthood, birthday, day in the life, sleep, work

run ragged and happy

June 21, 2009 by krisis

This is a meandering post about life and stuff. Content that’s all focused like a laser mounted on a deadly shark may or may not resume tomorrow.

This weekend E headed up the NNJ/NYC to play a show and help with some solstice cleaning along with the sibs at her mother’s house. I wanted to tag along to see her concert and reap the sib-time, but my life was in need of some cleaning up as well.

When I woke up on Saturday I felt like my to-do list was a litany of random drudgery. Organize this, scrub that, upload stuff to here. Even as I was crossing things off it didn’t feel very big picture. Typical: artist-, writer-, marketer-me trapped under a Sisyphisian list of uncreative to-dos. The only thing keeping me sane was my Twitter pipeline to the outside world.

As the day wore on I kept feeling like I was behind the boulder until I caught a social network update from my dear musical friend Vicky Spaeth, which read:

Simplify, simplify, simplify! I think we over-complicate our lives way too much.

I read that, then took another look at my list, and realized there was a big picture. It was all “simplify.” Organizing shelves and wires so my creative space is less cluttered, so I can create. Clean out the house so I don’t have a worry of other things to do nagging me when I want to create. Upload what I’ve created to as many places as will have it, so people can actually hear it.

I finally have the simplicity that provides one big picture. I have focus. Finally everything I’m doing points in the same direction.

I look back at the 2000 me. Within a two month span I started a blog, shot digital video of myself, and was the only songwriter on the whole internet uploading a concert every week. And it all came easy. But it was over-complicated. The technology was a tangle. The life was a tangle – pulling As and paying for my first apartment and squeezing in music beside theatre.

Maybe I was on the verge of conquering the world, but it wasn’t simple. There was no picture to focus on. Which was fine – I was in college! But that’s why we grow up. And hopefully get less complicated, instead of more.

It took the weekend and the twenty-seven years before it, but I am really almost there. Almost to the point that I can just flip a switch and empty my thoughts and songs directly onto the internet without a fussy mess of wires and files and wasted time.

And be worth watching.

It feels cool and satisfying, and I’m happy – happy sweating my ass off and mopping the floor, or putting away the umpteenth load of laundry, passing out on the couch while I wait for my wife to get home. Happy without any descriptors or mitigators, because there’s a point to it.

Just happy.

Filed Under: thoughts Tagged With: adulthood, betterment, college, day in the life, Elise, self-reflection, simplicity, technology

Primary Sidebar


Support Crushing Krisis on Patreon
Support CK
on Patreon


Follow me on Twitter Contact me Watch me on Youtube Subscribe to the CK RSS Feed

About CK

About Crushing Krisis
About My Music
About Your Author
Blog Archive
Comics Blogs Only
Contact Krisis
Terms & Conditions

Crushing Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Events Guide

Marvel Omnibus Guide

Spider-Man Guide

DC Comics

  • Beta Ray Bill – Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order
    The definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and […]
  • New For Patrons: Guide to Beta Ray Bill
    Creating my Beta Ray Bill Guide answered all my big questions, chief among them being: why is he a walking horse-person dressed like Thor? […]
  • Drag Race France Season 1 Episode 1 – Bonjour, Bonjour, Bonjour: Review & Power Ranking
    Where do the Drag Race France power rankings stand after a debut episode all about getting to know these 10 French queens and their talents? […]
  • D&D 5e-Compatible Kickstarter Round-Up: Adventuring With Pride, Herbarium, Servants of the Lich King, & more!
    A critical look at every D&D 5e-compatible Kickstart project closing by July 4 based on its sales pitch, pledge levels, and in-game offerings. […]
  • Shanice - I Love Your Smile single coverMusic Monday: “I Love Your Smile” by Shanice
    "I Love Your Smile" is a perfect encapsulation of the pure, twinkling, late-80s R&B birthed by Janet Jackson with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. […]
  • Marvel’s Angela – Definitive Collecting Guide & Reading Order
    The definitive issue-by-issue comic book collecting […]
  • Marvel’s Valkyrie – Definitive Collecting Guide & Reading Order
    The definitive issue-by-issue comic book collecting […]
  • on new (old) holidays
    On Friday I got to experience something for the first time I can recall: celebrating a new public holiday for the first time. […]
  • RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7, Episode 7 – Legendary Legend Looks: recap & power ranking!
    The All-Winners design Legendary Legends Looks inspired by RuPaul's favorite past outfits, and two of them are entirely red carpet ready! […]
  • (no title) Post 15647
    {{unknown}} […]

Layout copyright © 2017 · Foodie Pro Theme by Shay Bocks · Built on the Genesis Framework · Powered by WordPress

Links from Crushing Krisis to retailer websites may be in the form of affiliate links. If you purchase through an affiliate link I will receive a minor credit as your referrer. My credit does not affect your purchase price. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to: Amazon Services LLC Associates Program (in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain), eBay Partner Network, and iTunes Affiliate Program.