Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

erika

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There’s a unnatural desert wind through the chill of my room every twelve minutes or so as the heater in Lindsay’s closet warms the house with its breath, and in the breeze that just passed a picture came fluttering down from my wall. I picked it up to affix it back to the wall by my door and saw that it was a picture Ross had just given me a few weeks ago – one of Laurel and I at my first Drexel party.

It was taken over two years ago.

Two years ago, and as i pressed my fingers against its shiny corners to cover up the bare rectangle of wall it had left in its wake all that i could was that life is a strange and mazelike thing. I thought about how i spent all that week decorating her house along with her roommates, namely Kate and Erika. Kate wound up moving away at the beginning of my Sophomore year, and then Laurel moved away for a while and Lindsay took her room. I moved into a different house with with Lindsay and Erika this September, and Kate just came to stay with us for the remainder of the holidays.

Two years ago, and i only wound up at their house so much in the first place because i got into the play that four of them were starring in, and i was only there decorating so often because i developing a crush on Laurel, and i only went back last year to hang out with Lindsay, which brought me back into their social circle again. And now i am friends with Laurel, and her boyfriend from back then was just in my living room, and Kate is staying here for New Years, and life doesn’t seem to do anything but endlessly coil and snake around itself anymore.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/12/8268451/

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I don’t know what i was thinking, really. First i just wanted to give Amy her Christmas present, then we were going shopping, then we were going to IKEA, and then i decided that it was a good idea because i needed a new cd shelf.

Little did i know i would come back having spent the last of my Christmas money and in possession of three brand new pieces of furniture, a 20-piece dish set, a half dozen wine glasses, four rose-colored cups, and one new skillet. One minute Amy and i were just following the arrows on the floor of the uber-decor store, and the next i was pushing a shopping cart with one hand and pulling a hand-truck with the other. But, oh, no it doesn’t end there… because, other than couches everything IKEA sells comes unassembled.


How long does it take a single college student to build a double-width shelf, a six-tiered utility unit, and a waist-high bureau? Approximately 24-hours, taking breaks only to sleep, eat, go to the bank, and watch Momento. Which, actually, was quite a few breaks. I could’ve easily worked right through the night last night, except that i had come upon the hammering bit of the shelf just as my two roommates and two houseguests came upon their sleeping bit of the night. Myself, i was wholly oblivious to any noise being made by my hammer because i had the rather large headphones from the last post on and was being soothed by the folk of Gillian Welch down to the very core of my being. So, it came as a great surprise when an especially cranky Erika emerged from my stairwell to tell me, in no uncertain terms, that the time for hammering had come and gone.

Around there is where the sleeping-break came into the picture.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/12/8248519/

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I have become totally domesticated in my living with the gals. It’s not as though it bothers me, but i just feel like they’re intruding upon my messy bachelor years, or something. For example, yesterday i actually called home from work to see what they would prefer my nighttime culinary endeavor to be. So, not only did i premeditate my potential meal (based upon leftover supplies from the dinner i made on Tuesday!), but i decided that i needed to clear it with the roomies before i made the decision on my own. Sadly, I didn’t catch either of them, and seeing as i had the sneaking suspicion that one of them was highly alarmed by eggplant i refrained from shopping for the supplies i had in mind until i got a verbal “okay” from them. After a few hours of lounging on the couch when i should’ve really been doing the Business final i’m taking a break from now i was greeted by Erika, who came bearing groceries of her own! I started helping her with dinner until we realized that we were out of eggs, and so off i went (in my pajamas) to the grocery store — without a second thought.

It seems likes common courtesy or just being thoughtful roommates, but i really feel as though i’ve gone from being one of those cats that the neighbors leave food out on their porch for to being a house cat that occasionally struts around the lawn just to affirm his outdoorsyness. It’s not that it bothers me or anything, i just think it’s incredible what a difference a year makes; this time last year i was spending $60 a week on takeout food and eating a box or two of granola bars every weekend. Now i’m spending $60 a week on making dinner for the three of us, and eating leftovers all weekend.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/12/7924253/

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I’ve been having an ongoing conversation with a reader who actually listens and responds to my Trios named Grant since i got out of the hospital, and it’s brought something about myself to light that is central to my current unhappiness. In short, i am imprecise. It isn’t because i lack attention to detail, or the intelligence or skill to see such details through, but because they require too much time and energy. Why do i like to act but not to do shows at Drexel? Because i like the thought of acting as getting on stage and portraying a character, but i don’t like doing the same lines and the same movements the same way every time.

Of course, in almost any semi-professional theatre the entire point is to assimilate the direction and be able to replay it in a consistent fashion. Last night the roomies and I went to see Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Wilma Theatre, and i was in awe of not only the acting that i saw, but the very precise physicality of the acting. The flounces, the scoffs, the deep breaths … all things that add tremendously to a performance, and all things i tend to gloss over without noticing.

I don’t pretend to be much of an actor; in fact, i quite hate it. Looking back at all of the shows that i’ve done i cannot honestly say that i enjoyed a single role that i’ve portrayed. In each occasion my happy memory is connected to the people i produced a show with rather than my performance itself. As such, i can hardly fault myself for not enjoying the intracies of acting … i simply don’t give a shit.

Where Grant comes is is my songwriting. I might claim to hate acting, but i don’t think anyone can be convinced that i dislike writing and performing my own music; in fact, most of the time it would seem to be the only thing i like to do. Grant has been listening to my songs in in his last email he posed the following question: What do i have against finger-picking? My composing is, almost as a rule, devoid of all riffing and picking unless it’s been specifically inserted. In fact, any song of mine that has acquired a set pattern of picking is by definition in a higher stage of evolution than a song without (see Under My Skin vs. Tangling, or an older Never Say Goodbye vs. its demo version).

My first response to the question was simple: i don’t like to finger-pick. It’s something i’m capable of, but if you listen to my musical influences they are not fluttery pickers — i don’t like the shimmery sound of it. However, there are a vast majority of Peter Mulvey and Ani DiFranco songs where they punch out precise riffs in the midst of their frantic strumming, and of late these riffs have been absent from my songs (examples of which can be found in Lost or Bridge). Suddenly my defense just isn’t; in the past i’ve riffed and rocked, so why don’t i do it all the time?

I don’t know where i was going with this. I don’t fingerpick; i don’t like to fingerpick. I don’t act; i don’t like to act. So, if i’m not doing the things i don’t like, why am i so miserable?

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/12/7703915/

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We are zeroing in on the infamous Turkey Day, and i am just barely sure of what i am not thankful for, let alone what i am. Erika and Jack are both trekking towards New England with people they really care about, and Lindsay has Kate here for the weekend to keep her company. And i am grudgingly going home, just as much to mooch groceries from my mother and do laundry for free as i am because it’s Thanksgiving. So, chalk one more up to crass commercialism and living through the eighties, because i forgot what the thanks was all about.

Most of you have a significant portion of the eighties as part of your palette of experiences … what’s your primary Thanksgiving memory? I turned nine in 1990, so most of those precious formative years were already moving farther and farther behind me. My memory of Thanksgiving is all about my Beta Machine… countless pre-Christmas holiday special recorded on those pint-sized tapes while we were in the dining room merrily chowing down our Italian feast. The meaning of Thanksgiving to me is tied up in that silly B.C. cartoon special that i’m sure i could never quite locate on purpose amongst my nearly hundreds of beta tapes in the 3rd floor closet at home. Thanksgiving is not consumer, and it is not corporate, and it should not be intricate; thanks giving is a simple thing. There shouldn’t have to be a festival, or a parade, or even a turkey. God knows i don’t do any of the above, that’s for sure.


Tonight it’s just me in me — stuffed up and alone in my flannel pajamas with only the echoes of laughter from elsewhere in the apartment to keep me company. I’m trying to pick out what in this mess that surrounds me i’m happy about. The thing is, it can happen any day of the year, and if you put it off until tomorrow you definitely don’t have enough time set aside between the Macy’s Parade, dinner, football games, and leftovers.

Think about it.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/11/7310539/