Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

q.o.d.

I Slept On Top of the Sheets…

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Having introduced the trinity of my love, my mother, and my best friend, my cast of characters now widens considerably (though it stays predominantly female).

There are former crushes, drinking buddies, and college roommates left to touch upon. However, there is one past character who – even if she doesn’t come up too often these days in blog or in life – had a major impact on your humble singer/songwriter.

She is known as the Queen of Darkness. QoD for short. [Read more…] about I Slept On Top of the Sheets…

Attack of the Well-Mannered Ex part deux

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It is t-minus something to Attack of the Well-Mannered Ex part deux. He is in a cab somewhere, trying to find our tiny street.

As a precautionary measure, i have already begun to drink.

My only ex being not exactly a house-guest caliber person (for fear she would steal or break things, or try to sleep with one or both of us), i really don’t have any exes to bring into the have-over-for-dinner equation. So, the concept of an ex i’d not only allow into my home, but be happy to see and want Elise to get along smashingly with is entirely outside of my grasp.

Inching towards the four-year mark of our relationship i can’t say that i’m jealous, but…

Oh, here he is. shit shit shit, he’s coming into my room. minimize blogger. must not be passive-aggressive in front of company.

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Recently I’ve had a couple of people tell me that you start to feel old when one of your exes gets married. Of course, I really only have the one ex, and we all more or less lovingly refer to her as the Queen of Darkness, so that particular trauma has already passed for me. I didn’t feel old, though – I think she had been betrothed to the dark side even before she started seeing me.

I guess the thing that makes you feel old when a former significant other ties the knot is that you could have, theoretically, stayed with that person, forcing them to wind up knotting with you rather than some other person. Instead, not only have they successfully replaced you (with their spouse), they are several spins ahead of you in the game of Life.

Despite not having an ex for this to happen to, this weekend someone told me something that still managed to make me feel old in that same way – only a little bit different. Because, you see, I found out that a girl who I had never even kissed got married.

Of course, if I was counting the social evolution of every girl I ever had a crush on but never kissed against my own I would have to have some sort of leader board hung in my room to keep track of it all. In fact, this girl is a little bit different because I could have kissed her. I really almost did – as I remember it, we were all lined up for the moment, lips aimed and everything. We didn’t kiss, though. I didn’t kiss her because she was seeing a very nice boy who she seemed to like a lot, and I didn’t want to make myself a chink in their relationship’s armor.

I didn’t kiss her, even though I wanted to, and wound up thinking about it for the rest of the week, hovering by my computer in case she sent me a message of any kind. I’ve talked to her since, hugged and laughed with her, slept on her couch, and rode in her car.

I haven’t heard from her lately, though; we haven’t spoken in months. But, this weekend at our (yet-to-be-blogged-about) cast party, a friend of hers who was in town stopped by to say hello, and she off-handedly informed me that this girl, who I never even kissed, got married. Married to the boy that kept me from kissing her.

It’s not quite the same feeling of being old. Instead, as her friend’s words reached my ears, they manifested as a strange quiver in my stomach. Something about fate? Or karma? Would that kiss have made a difference? Would she have really kissed me if I had leaned in? Would I have been a bad person for doing it? Could it have ever even happened In the first place? Would I be who I am today if it had?

I really ought to save the tough questions until after lunch, huh?

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2003/05/200321905/

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The way things were headed i seemed due for either a complete mental breakdown or halfway shaved head. And, having just had a complete mental breakdown two weeks ago, i decided that looking like half-hearted punk rocker was better than lying in the middle of my curled up floor sobbing and speaking gibberish.

Subtract half an hour. I was sitting on the stairs averting my eyes from the television because Nicodemus has always scared me. As her hair fluttered down to a white trash bag spread out on the linoleum one razor-sized strip at a time Kate said that none of us had ever seen her natural hair color before. Grinning, she stood up and and walked out of the too fluorescent bathroom as Ross turned to me and asked if we were just trimming up the back.

Add twenty minutes, and i was attacking it with scissors while he shaved off the back with a half-inch blade, pulling at my thick hair so hard that i was crying. Tears carried shards of hair down my face like tiny rivers as we all laughed out loud. I wish that i could blame our hysterical laughter on being drunk or stoned, but we had all stopped drinking hours beforehand. They were laughing heartily, rolling around on the floor outside the bathroom, and i was laughing at myself.

Subtract fifteen minutes. They voted five to one for my haircut, but add twenty-five to that and they all drifted away. Bored with me, though i played the comedian as i tried to get Ross to pay attention to how short my hair should be. Elise won’t like this, i said, and they all laughed at my antics as i complained about the hair that was in my eyes and how much it all hurt. She won’t like, i thought, because i’ll hate it. I will never be able to convince her.

Plus thirty minutes. Standing in front of the mirror with the clippers wielded like a dagger, and it was almost perfect. Ross had left, Kate was in the shower. The top was excellent, the back was a little shaggy, but the sides were all wrong. They needed to blend from the top, and loop around my ears. The left side slowly conformed to my wishes, but on the right i came too close in front of my ear and was left with a tiny bald spot when i pulled away. It just won’t do, i thought.

They had joked earlier about giving me a mohawk.

Six months ago today was the third night Elise and i slept beside each other in the same bed. Six months before that i was packing up what there was of my life and wondering if it meant anything at all. Six months before that i was already saying what i refused to let myself figure out. And i don’t remember what happened six months before that, other than that it was a week before i started using blogger.

After Ross left, Kate wanted a shower, Lindsay wanted me to sweep up the hair in the bathroom, and Erika wanted to go to sleep. I just wanted my curls back, to save them for winter when i can be pretty again, and now i am just teary and wide awake waiting for the train to take me away from here in the morning.


I will not forget this feeling.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2002/08/85355930/

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Hi; i rock. Not as much as Jason rocks, but i definitely got some rock on.

Nobody wanted to step up to the microphone first so i bit the bullet and took the stage only to be informed that, no, the tech crew didn’t have any way to plug my guitar into anything electrical. They had lots of microphones though; would i like some microphones?

The whole think stank of their horrible tech set-up from last year, which nearly turned me off to performing in front of people altogether. But, i persevered – twisting my body halfway around so that i could aim my guitar into one microphone and sing into another. It was hellish, i was uncomfortable, and i was too distracted to hit the high notes. I was not the happiest camper in the room.

After slinking off the stage i slipped the tech guys the following note: “PLEASE can i have a 1/4 inch connection for my set. Please? :( ”

It’s amazing what little sad-faces drawn in blue pen can get you when asking nicely and smiling has already failed.

After a few other performers Jason and I were up, and i’m sure our odd parade of a small jittery songwriter and a quietly charming cello player was met with some puzzled glances. I was personally too busy fawning over the quarter inch adapter that had been scared up for me and Jason’s attempts to make a coffee shop chair compatible with his special brand of cello-rock.

Up first was “Lost,” which we held down nicely despite a few guitar flubs on my part. Jason’s cello on “Lost” is awesome because it’s a riff totally separate from the song, and it’s always very surprising to me to hear how it blends. Our second song was prefaced with something near “Maybe i should tune and then play. Do you think? I thought it might be endearing of me to play a cover song, and so i chose something i’m sure you all really like and now i’m going to destroy it. It will involve screaming. Jason will continue to be lovely.”

And, thus, we launched into a nearly flawless version of “Say It Ain’t So” that involved very little screaming and much head-bobbing in the audience. Let me take this opportunity to remark – once again – that Jason is amazing and that i sortof just stared at him while he played the entire guitar solo over on the part of the stage that totally lacked a guitar.

Sensing an opening, i did a brief strip-tease and then dove into “Under My Skin,” which was met with happy faces by all sorts of crowd-members who very generously made sure that i didn’t sing the same verse more than once. Afterwards we took a very competent stab at Ani’s “Gravel” until i decided to lyrically revise the second verse approximately two chords before the start of said verse. But, we definitely rocked the house down (and Jason mocked me a ton behind my back while i was being silly towards the audience, including a comment regarding angry lesbians just previous to Gravel).

But, anyway, i was a little mini-rock-star for a quarter of an hour and even though i flubbed a bunch i was actually good on the whole – which is a new feeling for me and my guitar. Maybe i need to bring more people up on stage with me next time…

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2002/04/85036968/