Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

mom

Why I #blamedrewscancer, Intermission (a)

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I’m not quite ready to be done with my story of jumping out of a plane to Blame Drew’s Cancer.

You see, I promised this girl I used to have a big crush on that I would write something “epic,” and now I have Drew on the edge of his seat.

It seems like a good time for an intermission.

From inside of the planning of Blame Drew’s Cancer events I can lose sight of why we’re planning. It isn’t for fun, even though we’re having fun. It isn’t for Drew, even though we’re all behind him. It is to get people talking about cancer out loud, to raise money to benefit LiveStrong, and to create a network of support for cancer battlers and survivors, and their families.

Every time I start to forget that, I am reminded of the changes Drew’s efforts are making in Philadelphia. People are blaming cancer everywhere I go, which means they’re talking about cancer. Not about cancer “victims” or “losing” the battle to cancer. No. They are blaming it. Making it a villain. Recognizing its impact while marginalizing its power.

They are beating it.

Here’s a partial list of the people who I’ve witnessed blaming Drew’s cancer in the last few weeks:

  • Larry Mendte, former anchor of CBS3 news
  • The chair of my events committee at work
  • Fox29 Good Day Philadelphia
  • A guy on the elevator wearing a LiveStrong band
  • The Philadelphia CityPaper
  • Local sports fan Joe In Philly
  • The team at LiveStrong
  • My good friend Ariel, as his friend Baylor, sitting on a SEPTA bus
  • Author Tara Hunt and the entire Whuffaoke crew
  • Gina’s boyfriend Wes
  • My mother

    Yes, my mother. When I mentioned Drew to her she knew just who I meant, which was a wonderful seugeway for mentioning that I had jumped out of a plane. “You know, with Drew. To blame cancer.”

    She was totally into it. Italian mother guilt averted! To quote:

    If you do anything that involves raising money for charity you can count on support from me. Keep me posted, and give Drew a hug from your nurse/mom.

    Drew, prepare for a really fierce Italian mom hug by-proxy tomorrow at LiveStrong night at Lucky Strike Lanes while you’re knocking down pins/cancer.

    (ps: You should come too! Tomorrow, Thursday, July 30, at Lucky Strike Lanes, 13th & Chestnut. 20% of proceeds benefit LiveStrong all day if you mention LS or Blame Drew’s Cancer, plus $20 a strike and $10 a spare starting at 7pm courtesy of Level 3 Media.)

    • breakfast of champions

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    I’m awake at 8am, just like any other day of the week.

    I briefly debated if I should eat some sort of special pre-jump meal, but given my general lack of stomach for breakfast it seemed like an unnecessary temptation of fate to eat anything unusual before skydiving. I settled on my favorite meal and number one comfort food, Special K Red Berries with Silk Soy Milk.

    (ps: Why is it called “Red Berries” when it only has strawberries in it? Wouldn’t you say that strawberries are the red berry with the strongest draw? Like, “OMG, I’m going to get some red berries today, I hope there’s some strawberries in there!” Did some other cereal copyright “strawberries”? Anyhow…)

    I’m also a bit torn about how to style my hair and what underwear to wear – two factors that are clearly not going to have a net effect on my jumping experience

    A few months ago I was yelling at my mom for not having a living will. The most dangerous thing she does is perpetuate a three-decade long smoking habit. So, jumping out of a plane made me feel like a bit of a hypocrite for not putting any affairs in order.

    (PS: No one, under any circumstances, should tell my mom I am skydiving. This is one of those occasions that justifies my blocking her on Twitter. If she finds out she will hit me with the Italian fear/guilt combo so fast and hard that I won’t even let the man strap himself to my back, let alone jump off of anything with him. Anyhow…)

    On the off-chance I die today, here’s all that I could think of while I was brushing my teeth:

    I don’t like coffins. I want to be disposed of in a green way where the earth can just reclaim me. If that’s not readily available in Pennsylvania I’d want to be donated to science – with the caveat that they can’t dissect or otherwise alter any of my boy parts, because that is just weird.

    I don’t like funerals. We went to a beautiful wake for Wes’s father last year that was full of music and might not have mentioned the “G” man even once. I really liked that.

    If I get killed doing this I blame Drew’s cancer.

    I didn’t get to far past that, because (a) I don’t think I’m going to die (and would like to keep it that way so, please mom, no calls), and (b) I was really hungry for that bowl of Special K.

    I’m going to go take a shower now, and mull more over the hair and underwear dilemma.

    President Obama

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    When I was small I used to watch the news every night. At seven I was probably more educated about congress and presidential politics than I am now.

    In the first election I was old enough to chat about – likely Bush Sr. in ’88 – I remember my mother telling me about Ferraro. “In 1984,” she said, “there was a woman on the ticket for the first time ever – Ferraro.” (My mother never uttered her first name that I can recall.) “She would have been Vice President for the Democrats, but they lost to Regan.”

    I don’t remember her sounding too upset; I guess everyone liked Regan at least a little bit. But, I do remember the message that followed, whether it was said out loud, maybe in a voting booth, or just implied during our next re-watch of Free To Be You and Me.

    It’s important that a woman can be considered for our second highest office. You’re going to grow up to be a white man, and in a way you’re lucky because you can aspire to do anything – even be president. At some point in your life you’re going to have the chance to vote for a woman, or for someone who is black or Asian, or for some other kind of person who usually isn’t given the same opportunities you might have. And, if you vote for them you might have to vote against someone who is more like you, but it’s important for you to support them. Not only because you agree with them, but because of what their election could mean for America.

    In a way her message, however she actually conveyed it, changed my whole life. It was the birth of my feminism and the kernel that would become my fierce dedication to civil rights for everyone, no matter how different from me they are. And, it made me become aware that America means something very special and very specific – it means freedom to be and freedom to choose.

    For that reason, even in the moments I have been the most critical of America, her message has always inspired me to fight for my country instead of against my country. That distinction has nothing to do with party lines and colored states on a map – it’s about freedom and choice. It’s about the quality of compassion.

    Yesterday we elected the first black president of the United States of America. Not just black, but multi-racial. Just like America. Just like the family I have created for myself with Elise.

    Tonight I’m already looking forward to America’s future elections. I’m looking forward to presidents who are female, Muslim, gay, Asian, or atheist.

    Yesterday we could have elected the first woman vice president. And, though she lost, she may inspire stories told to another generation of little girls and boys who will grow up to love their country not for what it is, but for what it can be.

    Tonight I spent some time with my two best friends – a woman who has made her way in a white man’s industry despite discrimination against her and everyone else, and another woman who saw four states tell her she doesn’t share the same rights as her peers because of who she is and who she has chosen to spend the rest of her life with.

    Yesterday I cried from when I made that last post until about thirty minutes after the acceptance speech ended. I cried, and it felt good, because I was witnessing the birth of the America my mother promised me I would have a chance to live in. It has arrived blessedly early in my charmed existence.

    Tonight I am weary and drained, but still ready to fight for my country, in my way. To fight to make people understand the rights we have and the process we are due. To fight for our freedom to be and to choose.

    Today my mother sent me an email that shared its subject with this post’s title. It read:

    Peter,

    We just made history!!!!!!!

    xo
    mom

    Turned Tables

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    Now that I’m over half of my mother’s age she has started sending me short non-fiction essays to read and I have started sending her corrections on her school work.

    I’m sure our former selves circa 1988 would find great humor in this situation.

    Where selflessness and procrastination collide

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    When I was in Boston with Erika she told me she likes to read CK when it is about my personal misadventures, rather than static ruminations or recaps of rocking Arcati Crisis shows.

    That was two weeks ago today, on my birthday, although I just now typed “a week ago,” because I’ve definitely misplaced some of the intervening days. I’m not sure where they went – I haven’t been making many plans or playing much music – but they are gone.

    Apparently spending days at a rapid rate just makes the passing of them easier – just like I’ve easily written more than 12,000 words today and now I can’t seem to stop writing.

    Last Tuesday is the last day I can get a distinct fix on without referring to old emails or a calendar. I know I spent the day at work, plus another six hours working remotely because I felt like “tidying,” and that I subsequently spent three hours copy-editing my mother’s 536-word college paper. Not that it involved much copy-editing. Moreso, it was that I wrote her a ridiculous 1300-word rumination on her assignment and how she could marginally improve it, as it was already awesome.

    (She claims that I did not get writing from her, but she is one of the most natural writers I know. She writes exactly how she speaks. It’s uncanny.)

    On Wednesday Elise and I collected our pal Anna and crashed the auditions for our acapella alma mater, The TrebleMakers. Well, we didn’t crash, really. It was more like we were uninvited, creepy, old guests with valid, non-binding input on the audition process. I was wearing one of my larger suits and sporting some facial hair, the combination of which I’m sure projected the impression of a rumpled old man who just rolled out of bed in his pajamas.

    (Think about this for a minute, my friends: the girls who are auditioning for TMs as freshmen were born after the release of “Like a Prayer.”)

    As per usual, any encounter between us and acappella results in unparalleled excitement and lust for our harmony-singin’ glory days (which actually only ended in 2006). It also results huge laundry lists of songs we’d like to arrange – this time headed by “That’s What You Get” by Paramore and “Breakin’ Up” by Rilo Kiley.

    Whereas usually such larks are promptly forgotten, on Thursday I fell ill completely out of the blue and spent the day home from work, during which I arranged like the unstoppable 2004-me that had a hand in a fourth of the arrangements on the TM’s last CD.

    (Then there is my heavily documented debate coverage, followed by a frantic 24-hours of strategic planning between E & I that has not yet yielded our first (non-political) freelance website but might still, soon.)

    Our weekend was consumed by more arranging and kitten-mania. Yes, the kittens from earlier this summer are back in our yard, and have been for at least a week – sleeping in flower pots and causing all manner of mischief in our box planters.

    Having spent a childhood raptly absorbing The Price Is Right, I decided it was my personal calling from Bob Barker to have the kittens spayed or neutered, and hopefully adopted. All weekend I colluded with Elise to capture them, at one point setting up a complex Fudd-esque “kitten blind” behind our back door.

    Elise finally caught the trio of them in a complex gambit involving a pet carrier and… well, mostly just the pet carrier. Subsequently, in my infinitesimal wisdom I elected to release all three of them into our powder room without calling to see if shelters had room available, or researching what is entailed in fostering a feral cat.

    Yes, feral. Feral, and raised on the mean streets of South Philadelphia.

    They don’t seem very feral in the “scary & rabid” sense. They mostly just huddle under our sink and stare dolefully when I stop by to feed them. However, they certainly are feral in the “not digging on humans” sense, which is going to make it hard to get them out from under said sink to fulfill the mission set out for me plainly after every Showcase Showdown.

    I spent the majority of last night placing said calls and undertaking said research, to generally no avail. As for today, I worked my typical no-lunch-break-and-extra-hours day, fielded a few unhelpful calls from pet shelters, and then headed home for an unlikely duet of kitten wrangling and drafting various Lyndzapalooza promotional strategies (at least a dozen, last time I counted).

    Which brings us to this unlikely hour, and my belabored point.

    In the past week I have worked extra hours, proofread and critiqued, crashed and input, arranged and recapped, strategized and arranged some more, caught and herded, called and researched, and wrangled and drafted.

    All of that, and yet I have not contacted anywhere about tuxedos for our wedding, submitted two months of transit receipts for reimbursement, or scheduled a much-needed dermatologist appointment to combat the disconcerting red splotches that have overtaken each of my laugh lines.

    Was I procrastinating on all three of those tasks before my whirlwind week overtook me? Sure, at least a little. But, in the past week I really wanted to do all three. I tried! I gathered papers and picked phones off their cradles. I just never found a window open enough to accommodate the completion of any one of the tasks, let alone three.

    A week later I have plenty to show for my continued procrastination, but not much of what I’m showing does anything to help me.

    Am I spending my time selflessly because I am so good at procrastinating? Or, do I find myself procrastinating because I am committed to spending my time selflessly.

    Excuse me while I sleep on it.