Thanks everyone for writing me after my post on being jealous. So many of you had great things to say! I thought that I would write about it publicly to purge it from my body because I couldn't even sleep a couple nights I was so jealous. To no avail. I am still jealous of other accomplished Asian women and in a sick way want them all to die so that I can be "the only one."

What the hell? What 1/3 life crisis am I having?

Last week I felt all jealous and gross inside, now it's waning as I get ready for my nice three week trip to NYC.

Ahh... a chance to relax. And de-tox from my jealousy.

So sad for an "art activist" like myself to really be so snippy like this, but the truth is, having been around performing artists of color, artists in general, and living in Los Angeles, I am not the only one who can get this consumed in jealousy. I am just saying it outloud. Putting it on the table. So many artists I work around always try to act so self righteous like they are so PC, so unconditionally supportive and happy for the success of others, and that they are so giving to the world with their art and vision-- and then they'll start spewing this hella hateful shit about other artists, it's unbelievable.

I have been in so many conversations with other artists where they start attacking the politics and work of other artists. And it gets personal. Listening in and even participating in those conversations feels so downright shitty. And when it comes down to it, it's all ego. It's enough to make you never want to be an artist. Why subject yourself to the poverty of being an artist AND the backstabbing criticism from your colleagues? Why not just join the corporate world where you get paid a ton and can "go home" at the end of the day and at least for a moment escape being attacked?

Sure, there's support in the artist community, but I tell you, when you get the grant that none of your colleagues got, they all start thinking and talking amongst themselves about why you shouldn't have gotten it or what card you played to get it. Or how easy you got it. And then they congratulate you.

Ok, so I am exaggerating a bit. There are people who are genuine, kind, and supportive in the artist community. But it's never 100%. We are all human after all.

I'm not being a scrooge. I'm just putting out the truth baby.

I think this is why I've gotten so into crafting this past year. If you've been following this blog, you know how much I love yarn, knitting, crochet, and I'm even getting into making felt dolls and pins. Here is one thing I made.




I love craftster.org and checking out the "recent posts with pics" link.

What I love about crafts is that whatever I make feels like it is all my own and it's so nice to be creative and not worry about what my audience thinks, what the press thinks, if it will get me a grant-- it's just doing the work, making stuff that's unique and soothing to make and brings happiness to a friend I give my work to. The crafting community is so much more supportive than the art world is to me. I think because there is pretty much nothing to gain financially. And we don't have to fight for gigs in the crafting world, we just have to get to Michaels. There are knitting gods and sewing goddesses. There are old ladies who can crochet you under the table, wear big bulky ass cardigans, and are still sexy as fuck. And these patron saints of the crafting community? Nobody wants to kill them. (Well, maybe they do.)

It's so nice to make stuff, just to make it. Nothing else.



And on that note, I go back to packing because my plane leaves in a few hours.

I would just like to share with everyone that sometimes, when I hear about the accomplishments of other Asian American women my age, I find myself bitterly jealous and insecure about my own achievements.

It is perhaps my greatest hubris.

If anyone would like to help me with this deficit, please drop me a line. I feel so alone at times in my ridiculous jealousy and don't know what to do with myself. Why do I feel this way? Is it that I feel like I am on the wrong path? That I am not trying hard enough? That I think it's easier for someone else to be more successful than me? That there can only be "one" of us?

Please, help. Jealousy is the worst emotion ever.


That is all.

Yesterday was so awesome. I had a two hour photoshoot with the LA Times. I thought they would snap and go but we did all sorts of crazy shots with me sitting on the hood of the benz, me draped alongside the car. I think the photographer was impressed with how I posed like a trained car model. (Shit! I was up all night studying import car model websites! Of course I was going to do this right!)

As for wearing a bikini in the photoshoot, after a frantic email from my mother, two of them, and several phone messages where she said that "only someone with no shame would wear a bikini and sit on a car," I opted for wearing cowboy boots, a skirt, and a strapless top. It was just as sexy. (Besides, I don't own a bikini.)

The article should print next week! I'm so excited!

The show opened last night! I was so nervous as all hell. It's such a big space that even peals of laughter sound like giggles. Leilani said I did great but after killing at the Public and having people stand up in the first 7 minutes of my piece, every other shows seems to be "ok."

And at the show last night, someone said they heard me on NPR talking about my car. So I did a little hunting and found the link... I am only interviewed for a second and am credited as "Kristine Wong" but oh well... close enough. I show up at about minute 4 of the interview....


I hope you will come by the show!

Yay! I'm at the REDCAT today where I had a tech rehearsal. I can't believe my show is in two days.

And on Thursday, the LA times is coming over to take a pic of me and my pink car! I'm going to pose in fake lashes and a bikini because it's going to be in the style section.

Hell yeah! setting the women's movement back for my own vanity and to promote ecological thinking!

I'm going to be famous!

yay!!!!!!

My friend Diana sure can rock the photoshop!

So I am premiering the show in two parts the last two weekends of the month.... are you coming? The show info is here....

I'm back in LA today. The LA Weekly has an article out about Lovecraft and my silliness made the opening paragraph. The writer went on a little too long about my back and forth experience getting my car and goes really out of his way to bash Brian and the veggie oil revolution but take that as my grain of salt and read it anyway.

I took my grandfather out for lunch just now (well, he treated me, I drove). What a sight we were! Me and my 87 year old grandfather driving about in this pink vegetable oil Mercedes on Clement Street. These thuggy kids walked by as I was starting the car, pointed to the hood and said, "Yo, that color is tight!"

I had to stop at Smart and Final for vegetable oil.

I said, "Yeh Yeh, I have to fuel up."

He said, "Now?!"

I guess he didn't realize I could fuel up right in the parking lot. Then he watched patiently as I poured oil into the tank and then he said, "Sorry I cannot help you."

As I put the shopping cart away, he was trying to get into the passenger seat and these frat boys watched in confusion as my grandfather slowly stepped into my eco-pimpmobile, his cane over his arm.

I've been recording little movies of him with my digi camera. I must sound like such a bitch on them from behind the camera because I have to practically yell out the questions so he can hear them. Where were you born? How old are you?

Over lunch I asked him what he thought of my partner. He said, "It doesn't matter what I think. It matters what you think. This is a free country. That's what people always say."


(So I guess this is the go ahead for my repressed urges to explore beastiality to finally be unleashed.)

Aw yea, guess how I'm keeping the environment a little cleaner this week...




Our writing workshop in SF is just about done. I feel pumped like I'm making mega process on this novel. I finally feel like I'm falling into much more professional habits as a writer. This is going to happen. It is. And it's all on me baby.

So, five years later, after dragging this freaking "I'm writing a novel I swear" proclamation around like a toxic ball and chain, I have it!

A very messy, filled with holes, grammatically inconsistent, totally needs work first draft!

It's about 120 pages (of hundreds of pages of writing I've done in the last few years) of various writing bits that I've cut and pasted together in an emotional/ chronological order of sorts. It's still a total mess and like most first time novelists I still expect to add and subtract, edit edit edit and slash and burn for another few years. (Maybe if inspiration strikes it can happen all this year!) I heard something like a novel will average 12 drafts before being beautiful. That sounds about right.

But this feels so good. I was so sick of this project for so long. Felt so helpless. Hated it. Felt like a failure. But finally, I feel like a sculpter who has gotten enough sediment out of the river, clumped it into a nice maleable block and am ready to really start sculpting this baby.

When this is all over, and I'm happily published, I look forward to starting a new life as med student.

Hello everyone! It is summer in San Francisco and I'm freezing my ass off. I'm wearing a scarf, a sweater and this knit hat I am knitting may end up being mine later if it doesn't heat the hell up in this place!

If you read my last post about fretting that I wasn't "arty and shit" enough for Santa Barbara, you will be happy to know that my show went quite well and the powerfulness of my imagination and insecurities got the best of me. I had nothing to worry about. The show was fabulous. I met amazing people. My hosts were amazing. I was treated to Japanese food with the curators and gallery staff after. It was beautiful.

Here are the pictures from the show....

I got my air conditioner fixed before I left and couldn't get it to work on the ride up. $#(*$(#)!!!! It was a sweaty mess. But glad to say the car made it up the 400 miles! At some points the steering wheel began to shake and then the CD player would skip, but for the most part it worked ok. I stopped every hour or so to let the car rest and check that it was ok.

It was definitely a new experience to do my filler up at rest stops and little parking lots rather than at the gas station. I was pouring veggie oil into the tank at a rest stop and this Pilipino couple came by to ask me all sorts of questions about my car.

Anyway, the plan this week is to pick the novel back up again and write like a mofo until "Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" takes precedence again. I should go and read 300 pages of this Chris Abani book. He's coming to our class tomorrow, so I want to be able to ask him everything I possibly can.



Ugh, so many projects. Not enough time.

I am having a big/little/medium sized panic attack.

I am going to leave the house in an hour to perform Fannie Wong at this art opening in Santa Barbara. The work is new video and photography from China, an exhibit that has actually been banned in the US. I think they think I am a big time performance artist. Which um, erm, yes, I am.

I spend the night in SB at the home of someone of the gallery's Board of Directors. Then I drive to San Francisco in Old Baby/Harold (that's the name of my pink veggie oil car) to go to a week long writer's residency. But this is on my plate just this month of July... there's no time to breathe!

-- performance today in SB
-- drive to SF
-- read 200 pages of creative writing
-- read 350 page book
-- get my writer's ass kicked at writer's residency
-- hang out with my grandfather
-- write stuff for poetry reading in Mission District
-- do poetry reading in Mission
-- have meetings with La Pena about my show in December
-- drive back down to LA
-- rehearse, write, tech show at REDCAT
-- make parents who are visiting and watching show down here happy
-- do REDCAT show
-- write stuff for Ford Amphitheater show
-- do Ford Amphitheater show
-- pack for NY trip in August

And don't even get me started on August! Yesterday I got an email from Creative Capital with names of people I can choose from to have meetings with and panels to go to at their retreat in NY August 1-6. The people I can meet with are so top shelf, I feel so intimidated. I freaked out last night, and my partner wasn't home to help me calm down. So Vince and I went to eat Ethiopian food, and all the while I screamed about how I was feeling like Jesus.

(Doesn't make sense? Yeah, welcome to my world).




So anyway, now I am prepping pics of me as Fannie Wong to autograph. This performance piece is so old, so low-brow, so dead and buried but somehow the occasion strikes to resurrect it. I thought it would be a perfect fit for this show since I was originally supposed to be on a panel on "performing identity." I've done Fannie so much, even at art openings, but never a fancy schmancy high brow one. I feel a little sheepish at doing this at the SANTA BARBARA CONTEMPORARY ARTS FORUM. I feel so tacky. So low brow. Like instead, maybe I should be covering myself in sand and paint really slowly. Or moving around in a circle naked with just a rope on. You know, arty shit. I'm nervous they'll hate me. I'm worried they'll think I'm ruining the whole thing.


As these big things are happening all around me, I'm beginning to feel insecure... unsure of myself. Not sure if I am who I say I am. Or if I can handle all this work. Hmmmm... maybe I shouldn't be writing about this publicly....

Oh god, can I just make it through this summer alive?