7.8.05-- New Yuck City, New Yuck

Is it possible that a city can be rainy in the summer, have heat but no sunlight, have pedestrians that have to bang on running cars to prevent from being run over, have trash in the street stinking up with the humidity and heat, have studio apartments priced to sell at $1.2 million, have more sewer rats than trees, have crazy and hard residents rushing and cramming the streets, have overpriced food-- and still be a place I'd like to live in one day?!?

Yes friends, I claim to be a San Francisco girl for life, but deep inside me, there has always been a little New Yorker in heart and from my soul she is screaming, "FUCK YOU! Can't you see I'm walking asshole?!"

This city is really bringing out my inner cranky bitch (or maybe just enhancing my outer cranky bitch) but for some reason I really like it here. I have always wanted to live here and after walking through neighborhoods that AREN'T Times Square, namely the Upper West Side and the East Village, I can see why people love this totally compacted and filthy city so much.

I'm here through the weekend before I leave for Rochester, NY. It's raining now and the subways are really miserable and remind me of Taiwan in how smelly and humid they are.

Good news for all of you, my server space has doubled and so now I can add a million more photos per web update!

BUT...

Before my pics from NY, I wanted to share pics from Vermont. I felt bad that my last blog entry made Vermont seem totally backwoods. It still is backwoods. But it does have it's charm. Case and point is the July 4th parade in the small town of Cabot, VT. The town is so small that the graduating high school class is only 20 students. Apparently there is a sizable heroin problem in this town. But you didn't hear it from me.

 

This ain't the Rose Bowl Parade. I've never seen so much farm equipment before in my life. It was so cute. It's like anyone with a tractor or old car could be in the parade.

 

Vermont's Bread and Puppet theater company is a mainstay in Vermont and do a lot of parade performances. I am so glad I got to see them. That is where my friend Paul got his puppetry roots.

 

The theme of this pageant was the "Vermont Secession from the United States." It was quite funny.

 

I don't know how serious Bread and Puppet are about Vermont seceding from the US. After all, there are only 500,000 people in Vermont, they won't really be missed if they secede.

 

Look at the spots on the cow, they are really faces.

 

I look up to parade admirers and feel like I'm in a movie or at Disneyland. Nope, I'm here in Vermont. This is a real small town and they do there real small town things.

 

Tractors pulling the Ukelele Band float. I can't make this stuff up.

 

I wish Asian Americans would get over the import car scene and get into tractors. They just have so much more personality.

 

They make cheese in Cabot. And the cheese truck is part of the parade and they throw cheese packets at parade-watchers like it's Mardi Gras or something. Only I didn't have to show my boobs to get the cheese. Here I am showing the cheese I caught. I am eating Ben and Jerry's ice cream in the other hand. Such the Vermont cliche I am.

 

And randomly on the way to NYC...

So I am sitting on this Vermont train bound for NYC when I hear someone say, "Kristina?"

The only other Asian woman on the train is of course someone I know. This is Dawn, a graduate of Wellesley College where I visited last year. She was randomly visiting a friend in Vermont and on her way back to NYC. A freight train ahead of us derailed and we had to take a bus to another train station. Coincidentally, I was planning on visiting Dawn's sister Catherine in NYC. Such a tiny tiny world.

 

And now I'm in New York...

and here are a bunch of boring pics of people I have met up with and dumb things I have done while here...

My comedian friend Dwayne at the Gotham Comedy Club in mid-town Manhattan. He lives in LA but is doing shows up here. Total coincidence we are here at the same time.

 

My friend Cindy from College. She is a dancer here and is in a billboard ad in Times Square.

***

I went by the offices of BUST MAGAZINE in NYC.

I am in the issue coming out July 26th! It's the "men we love" issue. So I somehow got snuck into that. I did a sneak preview of the little article on me in which they reveal among other things-- MY AGE! (not like it was that hard to guess that I was 21) and also some stuff on my love for karaoke. I'll remind you when it hits the newsstands in a few weeks. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to take pics of the magazine, but did anyway. So the cover you should look for is above but I covered it with red marks on it in case I wasn't supposed to take pics of it.

 

In the rain in Chinatown with Valerie. My publicist-to-be.

 

Valerie helped me bargain down the price of this badass belt to $16 in Chinatown. It's made of real diamonds apparently, so we got a good deal. She's a pro.

 

The restaurant owner of Shanghai Grill in the Upper West Side, me, and Sheridan Prasso. Sheri's book "The Asian Mystique" features some really awful pictures of me and some commentary on my work! It's a great book and you should read it! (Please ignore how on Amazon her book is being sold with "How to Attract Asian Women"-- that was not Sheri's doing and the books are totally totally different in content.)

 

Before taking this pic in front of the Seinfeld Restaurant ("Tom's Restaurant"), this totally normal looking lady told me I owed her a million dollars for taking her picture-- which I didn't. What a loon.

 

Me and my friend Michael Kang chilling in the East Village. Mike's film "The Motel" is the best movie I've seen all year. It stars Sung Kang (ah...Sung... one of the many reasons why I secretly wish for all the Korean men of the world to multiply and take over the planet).

 

Sunshine and I tried to see Avenue Q but didn't get picked in the cheap ticket lottery. So we went next door to support my fellow Goddard graduate, David Mamet. We watched "Glengaryglenross" starring Alan Alda! You know it's a good play when it's written by Mamet and it totally is easy to follow in the performance. I took a pic next to this bilboard because I have this thing for groups of men in suits. Even Alan Alda becomes somewhat hot when lined up next to the other old men in their suits. Ok, nevermind.

 

My friends Catherine (Dawn's sister) and Sunshine who is hosting me. I am wearing these sunglasses I bought here for $3.

 

Aw, so I had hoped to do a performance or two down here but there aren't too many spaces that will work for what I got. I came in a day too late for things that would have worked out. Plus I just want to chill. Next time folks.

Ok, the rain is so heavy now. And I'm still a loser indoors on a Friday. I guess I should work on this grant that's due in a few days or read some books.

 

I'll write again soon!

Kristina