The light is at the end of the tunnel.

I'm at the Kansas City airport now waiting for my connecting flight to LA. (Btw, the free wifi connection here won't let me view my own website because it's supposedly considered porn. Hey, Asian American woman, porn-- same thing.)

The last two days in NY were not so bad weather-wise and I will be a little nostalgic for NY this summer. But I totally broke the bank this past month and don't think I can go back for a while. It's totally fine. I look forward to cooking my own meals. Staying in. And having free adventures of which there are plenty of in LA. As soon as I wrap the show at the Ford next week, it gets a lot more relaxed. I've been non-stop since last year. And I looked in the mirror in the airplane bathroom a few hours ago and look like total shit. Rest is key.

I am very thankful for having found hobbies a few years ago. Performance and writing isn't really a hobby. It feels like work. Especially since I live off of it. It's fun and interesting work. But it's good to have hobbies not related to work. And it's good that I do things not related to race, activism, etc. Because that would make me more jaded and cranky than I am now. That's why I like bikes and knitting.

I don't understand why people are waiting in line for a $600 Iphone when they already have phones. And I don't know why I didn't think to solicit a potential sucka arts patron/ sugar daddy from that line. So I was thinking of what I could be as obsessed with as these guys camping for an Iphone. I decided that it would probably be a fiber and wool festival. My friend Wes' wife Jessica seems to go to them a lot. So I think I will try to hit one this year and make a bunch of new spinster friends who are in their 60s.

I looked up some online and almost came in my pants to see that there are two fiber fests in California this summer. One is in Santa Monica.

The Fabulous Fiber Fest in Santa Monica (August)

California Wool and Fiber Festival in Mendocino County (September)

Yay for yarn! A single woman's porn! Who will come with me to these festivals?


So here's a funny story. Or not funny, just interesting.

I was with spoken word artist Kelly Tsai in the East Village and we were crossing the street and I swear I see Carson from Queer Eye for the straight guy crossing towards us.

Me: Oh my god Kelly! It's Carson! From Queer Eye!

Kelly: That's not him.

Me: Yeah it is!

(Carson crosses past us)

Kelly: Go say hi! Go say hi!

(I run towards him and scream at his back)

Me: Carson! We love you.

(He doesn't turn around.)

(Two blocks of walking later.)

Me: Oh wait a sec. That was Austen Scarlett from Project Runway. Not Carson.


Also, while I was out here, I saw Naima, who won America's Next Top Model a few seasons back. She randomly stopped by the Hip Hop Theater Fest booth at this street fair I was at. I didn't register it was her, but because she was on TV and so part of my consciousness I was like, "Oh hey!" in that old familiar friend kind of way. (Then I realized, she doesn't actually know me.) It wasn't until way later that I realized she was from TV but I was talking to her like I had known her forever.


I have to board my flight now.

Labels: sex is unnecessary when you have yarn.

God. Just get me out of here already. It's a nasty sauna outside. You shower and as soon as you step out you're sweating. One more day and I return back to a less humid, cleaner and fresher LA.

I've spent my week just having meetings and meals. I was at Imaginasian TV yesterday and they invited me to eat birthday cake for all their June birthdays. It was a really nice surprise when an intern came to me and said, "Hi Kristina Wong, I saw your show at the festival. It was really really amazing."

It meant so much and was such a nice surprise.

I've crocheted like 6 beanies since I've been here. No, make that 7.

I'm trying to write "the years of lying dangerously" which I am doing next week at the Ford. I have no idea what to do. i am so brain fried.

I think I may just dry hump the floor for 20 minutes while talking about how "wong flew over the cuckoo's nest" has managed to scare off anyone from ever wanting to date me ever.

No new pics to share, so here's an old pic of me dressed like i'm a 14 year old school girl. I took it because I actually tied the windsor knot on my own from instructions on the internet and wanted to remember my handywork.



Please friends, don't beat off to it.

The other night, at the closing party for the festival, I drank so much. I started at 5pm and went until 5am. I saw the sun come up! It was unreal. I was saying aloud, "Hey! Am I in college?"

Jen and I have decided that we are no longer girls, ladies, women, womyn, or females.

We're broads. Badass broads. This would explain a whole lot about my behavior my entire life.

I want to start a "Broad Pride" movement. And I want my fellow broads to meet me at the Hot and Crusty in Midtown for our first meeting.




The festival is finally over.

It was a great festival and all but it became this weird incestuous never-ending theater nightmare. Theater. Beer. Theater. Beer. Spend money. Theater. Shit talking. Spend money. Theater. Gossip. Beer. Spend money. Spend money. Pizza. Gossip. Theater. Spend money. Gossip.

Someone likened it to grad school. Bleh. It's not that I don't love these people. I just can't be seeing them every day like I was. I think at my lowest I had island fever and found myself pursuing the cute 19 year old tech boy at LaMama and ready to embrace my new identity as an Asian Mary Kay Latorneau.

He managed to shake off every one of my sorry ass advances. And now, post-festival, I finally am regaining the clarity of mind to see how wrong it all was for me to be such a relentless Cougar.

I have been telling people quite publicly how tough this trip has been. It's been fun too. But it's been really hard. I don't feel sorry for myself because I did choose to make this my life. And sure, I am not sure if I'll be ever able to go as long as my friend Jude who has been doing solo theater for over 20 years and raised two kids in the process. But I'm here and this is what I'm doing now. And now is all I can really think about.

This trip has shown me that it's not easy to do solo theater. One, to write and perform it all by yourself. Then, to be scrutinized and criticized by your peers, audience, and press. And then at the end of the day, have to deal with the stresses of New York. Sleep in the stuffy heat and then wake up to cars honking away on 1st Ave. I've barely slept this whole trip. And I've gotten like 5 massages. I have also had a whole slew of self doubt. Wondering if maybe I should just be content to play cafeterias my whole life. The big city is so much to take in.

At one point I remember thinking out loud. Please, someone! Just hold me! Just hold me!!!

I've also been getting hit with pangs of post partum from both shows closing. However, on July 7 I have to premiere a NEW WORK at the Ford. It's pretty exciting. I'm sharing a bill with Guillermo Gomez Pena. And we are supposed to actually collaborate on a piece together! So at least I have more work to think about instead of how it's all over.

More work more work.

Considering I cried only a little after my first show here, I'm a pretty strong lady.

I'm a broad.

I said to my tech, Jen, that we will talk about this month in NY the way crazy people talk about their time in Bellevue. It's so unreal.

I've decided that for now, as much action as there is in NY. I can't live here. I told people when I get back to LA, I'm going to stand out in my carport by the dumpster, take a big wiff and appreciate how clean the LA air is. I look forward to biking to the beach. Driving in my mess of a veggie oil car around the city. To be able to lie on the floor of my living room all sprawled out and have Oliver (the cat/cat-boyfriend) throw himself on me as we watch movies on Netflix.

Oh well. At least I got some good memories out of it.



Here is Omar and his big stomach puppet for "Edge of the World." Our show was so much fun.


Here are me and Jen exercising our rights as broads in the middle of the afternoon.



Here is my tech guy, Michael. I crocheted him that beanie. Jen picked out the color. I hooked it up.


Here I am with my girls at Coney Island last Saturday during the Mermaid Day parade.

Hey everyone,

to quote my show, "i'm totally fine, i totally have everything under control." after an opening night that didn't seem as great as what i usually can give a crowd, i put on three great shows. i have been very spoiled by my Bay Area, LA, and Philly audiences who all gave me standing O's after shows that felt subpar compared to how the show has developed now. NY had a few who stood, including my funders at Creative Capital who were so funny. After the show they joked with me, "Ok, Kristina, we want our money back." The last show sold out and we turned people, including some good good friends of mine, away at the door.

and now i am teching for "Edge of the World" that opens at La Mama tonight. No rest for me!

I would have blogged earlier but New York has turned me into a sleepless alcoholic. I don't drink in LA because I have to drive myself home. plus it's expensive. but almost every night since my show closed Monday I've been pounding down the drinks then throwing myself into a cab or subway and trudging up the four flights of stairs to the sublet. this is one big reason i could not live here year round. It would destroy my liver.

I'm not as angry as I was last week. Man was I stressed.

I have a few pics. Will post later. I'm going to eat lunch with my Playgirl friends.

Here is the info on my show tonight at La Mama.

THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
A night of 5-minute-or-shorter plays about Asian American artists & culture
Featuring Regie Cabico, John Manal Castro, Royd Hatta, Robert Karimi, Traci Kato-Kiriyama, Dan Kim, Michelle Myers, Gary San Angel, Anula Shetty , Ryan Suda, F. Omar Telan, and Kristina Wong

Friday, June 15, 10:00 PM
Sunday, June 17, 5:30 PM
Thursday, June 21, 10:00 PM
Saturday, June 23, 10:00 PM

LaMaMa, e.t.c.
74A East 4th St. New York, NY 10003
Tickets available on-line at http://www.naatf.org/index.php?page_id=47

two for one ticket code is.... "EDGE"

Part cabaret, part object d'art, part truth or dare. In a night of all new 5-minute-or-shorter "speed plays" asking and addressing the question of what Asian America wants, a rotating cast from around the country throw their lives onto stage full tilt and take you on a roller coaster ride of comedy, drama, serious reflection, and pure theatrical entertainment.

The Edge of the World is a great big art experiment. We invited a dozen of the decade's most inventive artists and dared them to go beyond the traditional identity piece while creating a show that's grounded in personal experience. From the diverse and intersecting worlds of spoken word, comedy, writing and performance we've found unique ways to ponder: Are you what Asian America is looking for? So, what don't you want people to know about you? What meaning do you find in a piece of bread? And, are you going to bother to vote?

Join the artists in the Edge of the World collaborate for an evening of performance art that will make you laugh, should make you mad, might make you proud, and no matter what will challenge your expectations of Asian American theater.

Featuring Regie Cabico, John Manal Castro, Royd Hatta, Robert Karimi, Traci Kato-Kiriyama, Dan Kim, Michelle Myers, Gary San Angel, Anula Shetty , Ryan Suda, F. Omar Telan, Kristina Wong. Conceived and directed by F. Omar Telan. Co-produced by Gayle Isa.

my show opened last night to a packed house and i felt like i was on auto pilot. it wasn't my best, that's for sure. no, not my worst either.

i can't sleep. i've awake for hours listening to the traffic in the street outside my window. i think i heard a car crash a few hours back.

why am i doing this again with my life?

and now, i have to do two more shows today?

i want to cry. i'm so tired. i'm just so so tired.

Labels: crazy

Yay, Fame and fortune, mine forever. Or at least, maybe a bigger NYC audience.

Turn up your speakers on this one, it's hard to hear me. (Ha! That's a first!)



I woke up this morning to a scratchy throat and was surprised by an early period. And my whole body was sore from the inside out. I was like, "No!!!! Please not now!! Not this weekend!" It was definitely my body's way of telling me to take it easy.

It figures because I've been running around so stressed out in this city like nobody's business ready to punch the lights out of any man who whistles at me within arm's distance. Carrying all this crap on the subway from sun up to sun down. Plus this place is filthy. And I blow out black soot every morning from my nose.

My friend LeVan did his show at the NY Fringe here last August and I don't know how the guy was able to still stand after. I'm still in my 20s and I'm tired by all this running around town.

Doing a show in NY can kill you. But I won't let it.

So Marjorie and I had an easy day at the apartment. My tech, Jen said, "Tech's orders to you are to relax, stay warm (because it's been cold the last two days) and take it easy."

I can't believe my show is in two days. Right now our reservation lists are ok. Saturday and Monday will be pretty full, if not sold out at this rate, but our Sunday shows could be a lot better. I'm trying to not get too nervous about the fact that a lot of theater presenters will be there and some of my funders. Also I'm nervous about the reviewers. I'm not really fond of post-press. And I know reviews are necessary, but I really don't like them. I much prefer pre-press.

Anyway, so as promised, here are the pics of me in the Mayor's Proclamation.


And here is where my show is mentioned in the proclamation! Yay!


And here is the flyer with the show info.



Tell your friends!



And here is D'Lo kissing me.

Colleen gave me this for my birthday from the Playgirl closet and it's been gathering a nice amount of dust since. I am after all, a robot. Inside my chest beats a cold unloving heart.

I've been so hyperfocused on this show that even the thought of anything of a sexual nature barely makes my freeze dried uterus creak. You could parade a line of hot Korean men in front of me now and I'd yawn. Every ounce of energy I have and don't have is being poured into this show. EVERY ounce. The idea of romance sickens me because it's time consuming. Crushes are lame. Desire is for the weak.

I'm obsessed with my show in New York. And nothing else.

I had a vision of myself 20 years from. If I am as obsessed as I am now about my own work, I will surely, surely, start talking like a robot and live alone with my robot cat into my old age. I will menstruate the tears of a witch. I will beat my steel chest with my mechanical fist.

I am ROBOWONG 3000, the sexless and unloving creature spawn from working too much.

My friend Denise had a baby last year and I was asking her if her show feels different to her having done it before she ever had a baby and doing it now. My last show Free? felt so different from the first time I did it til the last time I did it last year. I had lost a ton of weight in that time, went from gangly to less gangly and I noticed how each word came out differently in my new body with the new history it had lived.

I am wondering if this new show, feels that way in my new sexless workaholic body.

I am indeed, the Ice Queen.


***
So, if you were wondering. A week ago, on my birthday, I put my number on the web and allowed people to call me to wish me a happy birthday.

Surprisingly, I knew everyone who called. And no creepies. This list included: Wes (Seattle), Joz (LA), Sunshine (NY), John Daley (Australia), my mom (SF) and some others. I also got a text message from Catzie in Philly and my friend Elz who lives in SF now. I also got a bunch of emails from people who remembered it was my birthday.

I like NY because I sent an email out at 1pm, and I got to see all these people later that night at my birthday dinner.



And coincidentally ran into Celeste, an old bride from Big Bad Chinese Mama who was eating next door.





Anyway, the festival started yesterday. It was great fun. The Mayor sent a proclamation and my show name was in the proclamation. I will post pics later and show you. Here is Marjorie, who is helping me from aging at twice the speed of light.

Labels: ice queen

So, again, can't blog for long because I can't sit for long and must rehearse but I wanted to let everyone know that I am not so angry today. Helena, my lovely friend who looks good in a tux (above, far left), who I've been in love with for years but my love has always gone unrequited, called me shortly after my last blog to let me know that a few of my amazing friends are generously putting together about half of the amount needed to sponsor tickets for the Chinatown Youth Initiative to see my show next weekend. This is enough to secure those tickets for now and so the kids can plan on coming and have their lives changed by seeing me, a fellow Chinese kid, screaming and yelling and knitting, and most importantly, I don't have to stomach such a huge loss.

Thank you. New York is quite nice when friends from LA jump in.

Will write more, soon, I promise. I'm trying. I have to leave from sitting down now.

Labels: not angry anymore. just tense.

It's not that I have not wanted to blog. Especially about my amazing birthday, how I saw my old Senior Boat Dance date Dax last night, how a total stranger on the street came up to me and asked "Oh my god, are you Kristina Wong?" etc.

I haven't been intentionally ignoring my blog.

It's just that there's nowhere in Manhattan to sit down to blog thoughtfully. And when I finally find a place to sit down, a real place to sit down, not a corporate building planter with spikes around the side so nobody can sit on it, there's a flood of emails about this or that crap. And I've been carrying around all this crap. And I'm tired. And I'm cranky because there is nowhere to sit down and I have to carry all this crap around.

I have a theory that people in NY are not depressed. Because depressed people sit around and lie down a lot. The blood inside the body of a depressed person moves slowly and slothlike. People in LA are depressed, because they sit around a lot, and are able to go weeks without seeing more than 5 people.

Not so in NYC. Where you see thousands of people by the time you finish breakfast. And your blood is always racing around.

Depression+constantly having to run around town and stand all the time = ANGER

Ugh. I need to crawl back to the apartment and nap.

I have pictures coming. I swear.

Marjorie comes into NYC tonight. I've hired her as my community outreach coordinator. Hopefully her help in outreach will alleviate this anger. This stress. And not heighten it. I just have to put on a good show. It's so hard when there's so many other things to think about.

Did I ever mention how hard it is to run, steer, finance and entertain this cruise ship named "Kristina Wong" alone?

Looking for a good kind soul....

Oh yes, in other news, I'm trying to find a ticket sponsor so that 16 kids from the Chinatown Youth Initiative can see my show for free. This program would allow these kids some early exposure to the theater, and mys how and the themes it brings up. They've decided somehow that my show would be perfect for their kids to see but they cannot afford to come nor pay for tickets. Unfortunately, the tickets cost me $320 to give as comps. Yes, with this particular show, I eat the cost of every unpaid ticket. Would anyone like to buy these tickets for them so they can see the show?

Do it for the kids! Please!

Ok, onward to my nap.

Thanks for reading! Kristina

Labels: goddamn new york makes me angry.

Today is my birthday.

It doesn't feel like it but it is.

Because it feels unreal, I am inviting you, my reader, to call me and wish me a happy birthday.

I will offer a log of who (name, city, synopsis of message) called in my next blog entry.

I'm taking down my number after today, so you have one day to call.

***-***-****


Please don't abuse this. It's partially an experiment.

Love,

K

Click to make bigger.

Labels: i'm kristina wong, stamina

Found an open connection on my stopover in Kansas City.

I had to pay $25 at LAX because one of my bags was 60 pounds! I packed a ton of stuff. Including my computer printer.

Sorry for the week of silence. I started a blog entry and then got slammed with work and never got to update it.

This week has been crazy. I am landing in NYC later today where this month I'll be part of six shows, four of them will be Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The other two will be "The Edge of the World" with the Asian Arts Initiative. I'm there all month! Woo! Craziness. I'm subletting my friend's place near Hunter College.

June in New York! Should be fun, and a lot of work. I worked really hard earlier this year so that this month could be possible.

My birthday is on Monday. Colleen, my resident "brag-a-friend" as I call her, and coolest person I know in NY says she will hang out with me so I will not be totally alone on my birthday. I want to go to the MAD Museum during the day for the "Radical Knitting" exhibit and maybe eat a pizza at night. I don't have big plans.


Last minute this week I decided to hire Marjorie to be my "Community Outreach Coordinator" in New York. It was just too overwhelming to do the show and also deal with all the administrative details of putting up the show. She was so excited about coming out and being part of the festival. She just graduated from college and has never been to NY. She was like, "Kristina Wong-- You are like Oprah!" It was funny. I hope she learns a lot, does a great job, and one day brings her own solo show to the festival.

Doing a show in New York is a big deal. And I hope I can really do a bang up job like I did my closing night in LA. I'm putting a lot of energy, moolah, etc into this. I hope it all pays off.

And I hope I have a good time doing it.

Labels: art talk, new york city