Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

laurel

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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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We were on the highway last night before ten. Melon was telling me about her ex-roommate from hell but i found myself increasingly distracted by the fog — everything outside was drizzle and fog. We were coming back to Philly, and on the driver’s side of the car past the divider all there was to see was fog and diffuse white light bleeding down from the poles above — as if the road were suspended hundreds of feet in the air with nothing on either side of it.

The three of us were driving into sky, and i was tucked into the back seat, back to listening to Melon, thinking “it’s not so bad after all.”

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/12/7911232/

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I feel like… i don’t know, Third Rock From the Sun? Do you remember at the very beginning of the show when the four of them didn’t understand anything at all? … Taking coats at parties, kissing, slapping, cheerleaders, and breasts? Lately when i go back and look at the archives i just feel like a visitor in the shape of me trying to emulate the behavior i’m supposed to be representing. Is that circular enough for you? The change happened somewhere around when co-op began, because you can tell the difference between the computer being a constant companion and just something to stare at in-between doing things. And then i started doing a few things and talking about them, instead of just talking about not doing anything. And now i do things all the time and have nothing to talk about afterwards.

What’s so interesting about my life, really? Obviously i do things… last night i went to the movies, i can talk about that. I walked to the movie theatre, which is three blocks from my house. In the lobby Laurel was waiting for me (along with her roommate and Jeff (as if i went on a date with Laurel and didn’t mention it (obviously i only mention Laurel because you know who she is at this point))). She asked if i had gotten my haircut and i responded “Not for almost a month.” We saw Monsters INC, which involved a lot of giggling. Afterwards i bought some sushi and talked about X-Men with Erika, who was reading Carrie.

So, there’s two main theories of journaling that i can discern. The one is that obviously my night was pretty freakin’ boring when it comes to reading about it, so i should either talk about something else or learn to do more interesting things. The other is that it doesn’t matter what i’m doing, just so long as i put my own spin on it people will care about reading. I’m not sure which of the two i subscribe to, but my first journaling connection online was the ever-present Gus, who resides wholly in the second school of thought. Gus basically just writes one post a day, each and every single day, and he weaves it all together so that you’re not only interested in what he has to say, but you honestly want to know what he’s doing with himself. Frankly, Gus is one of the only people who employs this technique who i enjoy, the others being Alison and Meg, though they use their narrative voice a little more pervasively.



The way last year had been going for me, i just merrily trolled along with my own script of things to say and would talk about parties and things if and when i went to them because they were typically unusual and exciting. But, at this point, going to a party is like “wow, another party. i wonder who’ll hook up tonight?”, and afterwards i’m always tearing out my hair thinking “how can i tell an interesting story about that lapdance…?” So, now i have a daily existence and i suppose my big question is whether i’m supposed to talk about it, or me, or some other nebulous thing — because back in the day i was talking about my life, but it was a lack of a life, so it was just me talk about me.

Wow, now i’m dizzy. Tell you what… you sit and stare at the screen for an hour thinking about what i’ll write next, and i’ll go get some ice cream. Cool? Cool.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/11/6976582/

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After spending so long implicitly pushing so many different people away in so many different ways, it’s strange to slowly get back to having anyone i’d consider a “best friend,” but somehow it’s happening with the most unlikely of people. You only get the chance to be someone’s best friend if you see them enough to get past all the petty catching-up-with-each-other bullshit enough times so that whenever you go back to that it actually means something, and that’s a phenomenon i unusually only experience with Gina.

God, could i be any less literate today? Excuse me while i go take an hour long essay test…

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/10/6758738/

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Somewhere in my Communications Theory book it says something to the effect of art introduces a new or original way of looking at life. Right.


I have been having some fussy bitchy unjustified issues with Laurel lately. Don’t ask me why, because there is no why; any issue i ever have with Laurel exists entirely inside of my own head. But, anyway, the first day she got back i just got this vibe from her that Laurel Had Returned and that i had gotten shuffled way down to the bottom of the deck from where i had been before she left. And, why not? Laurel is the pretty one, the talented one, the intelligent one, the castable one. Of course, i never saw it that way at first; all i knew was that i had a dream where we kissed and that it didn’t seem like such an awful idea.

Two years later, the situation is more tangled in my head, and who knows what the situation is like in hers. Tonight when we started talking in our production class all the petty resentment i was starting to build quickly faded out because face to face there was nothing… only things i had created and surmised.

Before tonight’s round of auditions Laurel gave me a ride to my house, and while we were there i played her some songs … two she already knew and three i wrote while she was away. Sometimes i question whether or not anything i do is vaguely artistic by anyone’s definition let alone by the one i mentioned at the top of the post, and today while i was playing songs for Laurel i was playing all my usual games … glancing up and away, shutting my eyes, carefully watching my picking even though i surely know the patterns tried and true. When i inevitably got to “Under My Skin,” Laurel sang along just like she did on the demo recording, and looking at her she was really meaning something when she was singing the words… not just intonations and syllables, but something beyond. I’m not sure if she’s even applying the lyrics to the same time and place that i wrote them about, but suddenly they have life and meaning for her, and according to my communications book that’s one tangible step closer to art.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/10/6070887/