You go out for all of 3 minutes without any bug spray on and..... ARGH!!!!! I am covered with bites from my legs to my arms! This sucks!! The bites are huge and HOT (not in a good way). Yet another reason why I'll be inside writing the book. It's gorgeous out, but nature is mean! By the way, I am so so so so close to polishing off a brand new first 50 pages of my novel. It's been really great to be totally in the writing zone. I'm finding new moments during this retreat that I know I wouldn't have found otherwise.

I am hoping that it's just the first 50 pages of a book that take this long. So much has to grab in those first few pages, as well as set up a good story. I still have so much work to do. My goal is a 200 page draft by the time I leave. Whoa whoa! It'll be the longest document I've ever written... that's for sure. A professional reader told me most publishable novels need to be least 250 pages. Oy, looks like I may have a novella on my hands. That's a lot of writing!

The nuts thing was that my "f" key on my laptop has stopped working last night. I could speculate on the many words I've used that caused the "f" key to go out. But I'm not ucked, I found a keyboard in the composer's cottage and attached it to my laptop which I am using now.

The whole "life minus the letter f" panic last night made me think of all the words I need that start with "f"

uck
ucking
ucked
ight
ly
ancy
amous


So, the G-H-O-S-T situation.... I think now that I am on a regular sorta sleep schedule, it has perhaps passed. Though I am pretty spooked by every creak and bug I see at night. And mind you, there are plenty. There are still odd bugs that make their way into the cottage. Last night I swear I saw a baby embryonic gecko running around.

It's odd to sleep with the Gulf just outside my window, because part of me hasn't still been able to stop thinking it's the sound of cars.

My sleep schedule is still odd though. I am awake and asleep, awake and asleep... writing inbetween.... at all hours. It's kind of nice to be this insane writer. I haven't been in this kind of writing groove since undergrad.



Also, ever since my roach videos, I have been getting messages from strangers that are like "Can you do more of those but wearing a heels and a short skirt?" Like really weird fetish requests.

I had no idea that roach killing videos were the new snuff.

People are sick.

Labels: artist life, road wong

Ok, I know I've been blogging a lot. But now that I feel somewhat less spooked I can write about this. Basically. There's a ghost in this house. This has been confirmed by the Director. It's the grandma of the guy who built this house in 1907. And during some seance they had way back when, she said she was happy with how this house is now being used. And she's friendly. And her presence has been confirmed by the board. I wish she would help me kill these roaches and write the novel. But it's creeping me out a bit. I think this only happened this week with the advent of the roaches takeover which has made me ultra antsy. Though tonight, there was only one tiny roach and a big roach that ran back into the walls when I came in for the kill.

I am not one to "feel" ghosts. But I feel this one. I can't describe it. But I'll be brushing my teeth and it's clear I'm not alone.

I'm beginning to feel like Sarah Winchester.

So I'm on this totally nocturnal schedule. Where in my freakouts, I am wide awake at night staying up with the ghost and the roaches. Doing computer work. And all sorts of weird crap happens. Like frogs inexplicably appear and throw themselves against the window and breathe. Floorboards creek.

So I'm slowly moving back to a regular sleep schedule. Because being up late at night, I know, can bring this out in a person. Delirium. Cabin Fever.

On a bright note. Here are some video blogs I made right before sunset.


Me talking about how much I love Obama kissing babies.



A tour of the Manasota Key.



This is really bad.



If you were wondering how I am progressing with work.



I made this for my friend Double G who says stuff that sounds psychotic if you say it back slower and more breathy.

Labels: crazy, Obama is hot

This is easily the cutest news story this year.


I want this man to be my President! And I want to be his mistress. OH...BAMA!!!!!!

Labels: Obama is hot

The exterminator came today but still these roaches roam the bathroom here. So today I decided, if I can't beat them, cast them. I tell you, it isn't easy to shoot, star, and kill in your own short film. These are both pretty good. The second one is more dramatic. Bug killing makes for the perfect subject for a short film. Characters, conflict, rising action, climax, and resolution.

Film #1




Film #2





Today I went to the local playhouse to watch how they do community theater out here. The local playhouse is all volunteer run and their theater building (which used to be a funeral home) is getting too small for just 99 seat audiences so they are moving to a 300 seater. It's amazing to see how many people come out for theater on a weekday because they want to and what else is there to do really? I definitely began to see how I am pretty much staying in a retirement community. I think the median age there was 106. Everyone was so sweet. The actors were pretty good, and some of them sell real estate on the side! They even let me draw the raffle ticket winner before the show.

The craziest thing happened. There was a big thunderstorm during the show and this lightning struck and the lights went out in the theater. At first it seemed like an amazing cue. We think the lighting hit the transformer by the theater. They kept the show going by having their tech people shine flashlights on the actors. It was pretty incredible how pro they were about it.


Equal opportunity commode!!

One of the members of the Board of Directors was like, "You should do your show at our playhouse." He obviously has not seen my work. I can imagine doing a show there. Doing a fake orgasm on the stage for the seniors? My crazy ass at a playhouse that does strictly Neil Simonesque plays? Oh boy.

No need to rush the inevitable, really.


I am so into these collage posters for their plays. When is the photo collage coming back?!!? Screw Adobe Illustrator!

I also saw Asian people for the first time today at a restaurant. I wanted to talk to them and ask them about their lives and ask them if they ever miss home or want to get pregnant and smoke and drink six months in.

I told the Board members today about the smoking bartender and the shoddy selection of men out here. They were really funny about it. One volunteered that the locals were "neanderthals." They told me that local Floridians are called "Crackers." Like the title of this painting below that was for sale at the theater.

Labels: artist life, oh my god, rednecks, road wong, sex is unnecessary when you have yarn

Saving a Fetus in Florida from kristina wong on Vimeo.
So now my videoblogs are getting so long and windy that I actually have to host them on Vimeo! Anyway, this one is good! I hope you will listen to today's big moral debacle about whether or not to save a child's life by speaking up or shutting up. Today, I chose to shut up.

As a result, a one eyed four legged child will come into the world... and she will probably be named "Kristina" after the woman who decided to use "the law of attraction" to save her unborn life, rather than a good ol' fashion tongue lashing.

I am so sorry Baby Kristina....



On an up note. I saw a turtle today on the side of the road. I think turtles can hiss. Here is the turtle I sang to.

Labels: rednecks, the secret

Labels: stand up

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristina_wong

Can a blip on the cultural world named Kristina Wong even last on wikipedia for more than a week?

Btw, looking up your colleagues and mentors on wikipedia is a surefire way to feel under accomplished and old. I was knee deep in colleague stalking and just about to seep into that horrible place in my head called "wah wah wah, my past! my past!" when the UPS truck rolls up to the beach house and they drop off this awesome gift basket from my friends Mike and Nancy.



Just in time! I am loved. I am living the good life. And I'm looking forward to having my own little picnic by the sea. Who will join me?

Labels: i'm kristina wong

So he still hasn't sent me my shirt. There's no denying love at first sight. I'd fist bump that man all night long if he'd let me.

Labels: Obama is hot

That would be me on the Jumbotron....

I'm back in Florida at the beach house after spending the night on a red eye flight. I got in this morning. Can I say that the neck pillow ranks as one of the world's best inventions? I slept so much better with the neck pillow than on the flight to LA where my bobbing neck almost snapped in half trying to sleep!

Well, my weekend was unreal. I went from running among the geckos on this Florida island, to speaking at Pauley Pavilion(!!) to UCLA's Commencement for the Department of English! It was a little weird to come back to the big city life that this retreat was meant to be an escape from... to be driving my car (which btw, I am so happy to leave parked for the next five weeks... far away from the gas crisis) and to be amongst, of all things.... people! And lots of them!

There were many things that were unreal about the whole thing. I thought it best to sum up the experience in a videoblog below.

My commencement speech experience on videoblog!


Untitled from kristina wong on Vimeo.

After recording this, I realized I am totally dressed inappropriately for the video blog. Maybe I could have slapped on some make-up or worn more clothes... but it's freaking hot outside! What do you expect? Screw it! You get me in the raw! And you get to see my granny panties coming out of my shorts in the beginning. SIGH.


Check out the dolphin sleeves they gave me on this gown. I was actually able to use them to store my speech and blackberry. (Perhaps storage is really what they are for?) I think I was the only one at this commencement wearing plastic jewelry.


What a great Father's Day gift for my dad to be able to bring him back to my old college campus and have him hear me speak at commencement! I was so proud to give him that moment.



They had an old bio for me and introduced me as "Kristina Wong is a Performance Artist." I almost wanted to laugh at how weird that sounded. And I am sure they did too.

"Yes, that's right. You heard the man. I'm a performance artist. Quit laughing."




Here I am standing among the Harry Potter people.


Hmmm.... It's not really the 99 seat theater I'm used to.


Seeing as how many people were there, maybe I should I have worked in a pitch to get people into my "multilevel marketing scheme."

"Now if you can get three friends, to get three friends...."

Labels: artist life, i'm kristina wong, toastmaster wong, vision

This is what it looks like over the gulf right before the storms come in.

I'm so so so so close to finishing this commencement speech. It's killing me. It's taking me days to articulate and filter down what I want to say. It's hard when I can't rely on my old stand-bys to get me through this speech-- no profanity, no strap on vag, no-strap on weiner, no battery powered unitard or karaoke machine, no excessive costuming or super interactiveness... Just words. Encouraging words! UGH!!! So hard!!!

But I feel quite close and I think I can have something by the end of the day.

I am practicing reading this to people. If you want me to read this to you. Email me (k AT kristinasherylwong.com) and I'll read it to you by phone.

I'm also not sleeping well here. Well, I will go to bed listening to the waves but feel unrested when I wake up and have all sorts of weird dreams. This morning I woke up with this nasty crick in my neck and now I can't turn my head to the left all the way.

I will just accept it as me detoxing from city life.

I had my first "race incident" yesterday. It'd been a while since I'd experienced something like this. I decided to go for a walk in the nature walk across the road. Mostly because I wanted to look for iguanas and lizards which I haven't seen since the first day here. And I was actually quite freaked out on the walk because there are these really loud bugs in the trees and you can hear things scampering, like geckos, but you can't see them.

Anyway, so I get out of the walk and there are these leather skin rednecks (there are a lot of them in Florida) drinking beer in their truck. There are two guys and one girl. And I just walk past their truck to cross the street and I hear, "Oh yeah! Chinese... Japanese... Yeah..."

And I turn around and glare and he says it again!

"Ooh.. Chinese Japanese. I'll take them all."

I so badly wanted to flip the bird, or scream something (which I love doing), but they were scary rednecks in a truck with beer cans and I was Kristina Wong with flip flops and house keys.

So I sucked it up and just walked back to the beach house. It's alright. Their lives are so sad with their bright red skin and tattoos that have lost all definition. And my life is great with my air conditioned beach house.

I told my friend D'lo about this. And D'lo says the next time that happens, I should look at them really seriously and be like, "I have Herpes and Clamydia."

I thought that was funny.

Labels: artist life, rednecks, road wong, vision

As you can see. I am getting used to being here. And as relaxed as it is-- the isolation, the wildlife, and the long list of stuff I need to accomplish while out here has stacked quite the learning curve. It's actually harder than I thought it would be to figure out how to spend my time here. Time is flying and there's too much work to do.

My commencement speech for this weekend is still tiptoeing together. I have such high standards for how I want it to go off. But I can't shake off the crappy unsolicited advice from my mother's high school friend on how to write a speech. Her stringent advice pretty much boils down to "be a boring know-it-all and make all Chinese people look good." Her shat advice echoes in my head every time my fingers hit the keyboard....

"Stick to one issue, such as "how English helped me to survive and landed me a job in communication/acting/; how English helped me become a writer; etc." NOT SOME CONVULUTED SUBJECT that will take a lifetime to explain. Keep it SIMPLE."




The great news is that the trustees who live on the island are so kind and have offered to take me boating and fishing... something that I've never desired much to do, yet made my wishlist on Monday. Today I left the premises to go to dinner with them and found out there is actually a semblance of commerce about two miles up the road.


The sunset over the Gulf of Mexico.


If you were curious about my cottage. Here is the bed I have that overlooks the sea and the living room area.


Here is my living room. Pretty nice huh? It's the house I imagined having for a long time. And now I feel stressed to make the most of this.

It's a lot to receive, to breathe and move forward.


By the way, I'm also addicted to this amazing show on TLC called "Jon and Kate plus 8"-- about this couple and their kids (a set of twins and a set of sextuplets). The dad is half Korean, but their 1/4 Asian babies look really really Asian! They are such a funny couple and their kids are so adorable. The scenes where the kids are all screaming and yelling makes for a great form of birth control.

Labels: artist life, road wong, the secret, vision

When I was a lil' girl, I imagined having a big beach house to live in. Steps from the sand. And now, that dream is true... well... for at least six weeks. This is one of those summers where life looks the way I've always wanted it to be.

That's right kids. A year and half ago, I got a mysterious letter in the mail saying I had been nominated for the Hermitage Artists Retreat on the Manasota Key off of Englewood, FL. I was nominated by one of their board members. I cried when I got the letter because pretty much the letter said that without an application or particular project, that the space and time to create was mine if I wanted it. The pictures of this mysterious retreat were breathtaking. It's pretty much the MacArthur of artist retreats-- well... in that unsolicited gifts from heaven kinda way..


That would be my house behind the palm trees.


That would be my backyard.


The view from my office/ writing room.


The steps out the door.


There are big seashells washed up on the shore.


RESPECT.

It's amazing to be here. It's my first day here and I feel like I've been here for two weeks. I am also the only artist here. The next artist doesn't come until July. So I've got this two bedroom cottage to myself and have my run of the kitchen, living room and big house on my own. I hope that time continues to stretch like this so I can make progress on the book. And there's absolutely no commerce on this key. I have no car. And if there are any singles out here, they are all over 65 years old.

It's going to be a ripe environment to get work done.

I also saw an iguana today on the walk back to the beach. It was funny because I was like, "AAGH!" I thought it was like a mini dinosaur. I want to get a book about the animal, flora and fauna in Florida so that I can stop referring to things in terms in of TV shows. ("Oh wow, those cottages are like the ones on LOST.")

*******
And just in the last few days, I was in Minneapolis, MN for the Asian American Theater Conference. More on my fake panel later. But here are my fun tourist pictures.


Paul Bunyan mini golf at the Walker Art Center.


Sticking it to the man at the Mall of America theme park ride by not paying for their photos, but instead taking a picture of their picture of me on the screen.



Cheese bras with my friend Sam.



Cheese hats.

Some random kid I picked up and photo'd with at the airport.

Labels: artist life, balance, i'm kristina wong, road wong, winnings

I am on a layover now at the Vegas airport. I'm on my way to Minneapolis for the Asian American Theater Conference. After that, I head to Florida to do a 6 week residency (with a quick trip back home for the UCLA commencement speech!) where I get to sit on the beach and expect to finally make some substantial progress on my book.

It's here! Rest time! Artist time! Real artist time! Not admin crap time. I can't believe it. I scheduled this residency over a year ago! And it's finally arrived.

I'm fried. I had a big birthday/ wedding party last night, then got home and started to clear the apartment out for the subletter and was up until 5am. My flight was at 7:30am. I was kinda stressed with all these new airline baggage charges and as I got my crap into just one "first bag checked bag is free" suitcase, I was doing all this "Do I have everything I need... do I? Did I pack too much? Am I going to have to pay for a heavy bag!?"

Stressoids.

It's impossible to sleep on the plane. I'm tempted to sign up for a credit card at the airport for the free neck pillow.

Last night was so fun because Marcus did me up as this big drag queeny bride and officiated my wedding to myself at the restaurant. Yes, I got married to myself last night. It was actually as funny as it was emotional. In wedding fashion, my friends gave some words of advice for how the rest of my life will best be spent by myself. I decided to marry myself this year because I originally wanted an excuse to have a "wedding gift registry" for different organizations I believe in and wanted to raise money for. But it ended up being about me declaring that I would love for myself (this is different than being self-obsessed-- which I excel in) no matter what. Unconditional self love and support.

It's a hard thing to commit to doing. But if I can't marry myself, why would anyone else want to? Not that getting married to someone else is the end goal. The end goal is to be happy and happier with life no matter what happens to you that you can't control.

We did a bouquet toss and everything last night. It was hilarious. Pictures to come.

The last days were so impacted. I did my "Whoring for Hollywood! Big Hollywood Showcase!" Monday at the Comedy Central Workspace and it went over really well. Apparently even the folks from Comedy Central had a good laugh. It turns out-- I'm an awesome sellout! I didn't think it was possible for my vision to go over in that kind of setting, but all the time I spent in May working that show so it was still true to who I was, and yet still entertaining-- really paid off. A lot of my friends who hadn't seen me perform in a while came. Like my friend Dwayne came and was like, "Wow, you've really grown a lot."

I have.

The sky is open. I feel it. And I can't wait til I am on the beaches of Florida feeling that sky a few days from now in front of my own private artist's cottage. It's been a nice long crawl to get here and having those little moments to find a little ledge to stand on and admire the view is tremendously validating. A few years ago, I was selling whatever I could online to make ends meet. Now, I am proud to say that even if I spend a lot of time doing arts admin crap, it is at least directed towards my vision.

I am in front of some amazing possibilities. I've earned it. I embrace it.

Labels: artist life., road wong, vision, winnings

I haven't blogged in forever. I started a blog about how weddings are dumb and then saved it as a draft, only to have a massive fall off my bike the next day (I'm ok, but I'm massively bruised up). Then I spent the whole week trying to write this grant which I finally finished last night. That grant was no joke. I easily had 10 drafts of it before I finally gave up and decided it was done. Folks who think it's easy to get someone else to give you money to do art are seriously deluded. If I get this grant, I get $0 after I pay out all the things I budgeted.

My big showcase is tomorrow and I am still not totally memorized. I was all freaked out about it... to the point that I wasn't even sure if I could still go through with it (because it's still a new format for me and I was just so unsure of myself). I actually had a moment where I considered quitting... which is crazy... because I'm not a quitter.

My good friend, the famous playwright Alice Tuan said something great of this panel we are doing next week in Minneapolis called "APACUNT." It's a really outrageous fake, but real panel we're orchestrating that sends up a lot of "panelism"-- if you've gone to enough conferences, you may know what I am talking about. We're probably going to be the total blacksheep of the Asian American theater world (you know, and it's SUCH a big world that Asian American Theater World), after the antics (such as me pulling out a dong from my undies and stroking it as I read my bio) we have planned.

She said, "What's the worst that can happen, the folks who aren't producing my plays, still don't produce my plays?"

And I was like... "Oh my god! Yeah! What's the worst that could happen after this showcase? The career I don't have in Hollywood still doesn't go anywhere and I must then continue making an amazing living as a world touring performance artist? Boo hoo!"

So I am just going to put it all out there tomorrow. Have a fun time. Make mistakes, still pick myself up and keep going. It'll be a 35 minute version of my life.


LIST: You know you are a performance artist when...

1. You can't go out for martinis with friends on Friday night because you absolutely have to watch a man crawl around in an alleyway with a lit candle in his anus for three hours. (After all, he's your best friend.)

2. Thoughts of how to make your unitard battery powered keep you sleepless.

3. You have phone conversations that end like this: "I gotta get back to sewing my vagina. I'll talk to you later."

4. You roll your eyes when someone tells you about a gallery performance where a guy covered himself in flour and shat into a clear bucket for everyone to see. ("Oh please. That's sooooooooooo been done before.")

5. You are thinking of being a lesbian for a month and already know what grant you are going to apply for to support it.

Labels: artist life, hollywood wong