He has Emotional Responses. Wait, he has emotions?

Actor/College Friend Nikko Kimzin is currently traveling Europe with the international tour of West Side Story. His blog  can be found here. As he writes I will translate his thoughts and add commentary on his experiences, not with the hope of anyone actually reading them, but for my own entertainment. It's like Whatever Martha, only international. 


When I set out on this little venture to poke fun at my best friend I could not have possibly foreseen how exhausting his blog would become. Clearly I'm very behind in translating his blog/keeping anything consistent happening on this blog. Thankfully, he seems to be equally incapable of keeping it up. The good news is, this proves that our lives are so busy it is close to impossible to prioritize an online presence. Maybe that's true for him, I'm just somehow bored and overwhelmed at the same time - a state I like to call: exhausted.

In Nikko's update "Gutten First Week" there's a lot happening. First and foremost, he's having a good time and showing a lot of gratitude. I think it is moments like this where people have the most trouble understanding Nikko. At first his wishing we could all experience the excitement of his life comes across pretty rough. In fact I'm pretty sure it took me a week to get past,


"And for real for a sec, if I could gift something to you I would invite all of you to be a fly on the wall in the rehearsal room so you would be inspired to be a part of something bigger than yourself: a message of hope". 

Because I couldn't help but translate that as, 


"If only your life were as cool as mine. If only you were on an international tour that isn't only cool and fun but also socially aware, giving people a sense hope. HOPE. Like what are you even doing? Ugh. Be me" 

But I don't think that's what he's trying to do. When Nikko is passionate about a project he really does get very excited about it and wants to share it with everyone. It's actually pretty safe to say that he gets that way when he's passionate about anything. If it anything it helps to explain his choice of profession - the whole sharing of feelings in a public arena thing. As for the gushing about how  relevant West Side Story is to contemporary culture, he's not wrong but he's not also not terribly original. It's kind of the bread and butter of anyone who's working on anything written longer than 3 years ago. I'm interested to know the German perspective but he's clearly too offensive to talk to anyone. 

I will admit that I'm super jealous of the cool places that he is going to in Berlin. Especially the Holocaust Memorial which is also knows as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, or as Nikko kindly puts it "The Jewish Memorial." If you ever get the chance to go to a museum with Nikko, GO. His attention span isn't terribly long (which is nice because people tend to drag out museum visits to try to prove something) but he really appreciates things that are beautiful or historically significant. I'm glad he learned the word somber because it is actually a great way to describe how he gets.

The story about ordering the pastry in fake German. Well. I mean listen. It's a lot. I'm willing to bet that if Hilary had her choice, she'd deport him back to America. If America had her choice, she'd give him back to Mexico. But then what would I have to talk about?

Response to Nikko Nose

Actor/College Friend Nikko Kimzin is currently traveling Europe with the international tour of West Side Story. His blog  can be found here. As he writes I will translate his thoughts and add commentary on his experiences, not with the hope of anyone actually reading them, but for my own entertainment. It's like Whatever Martha, only international. 

He starts with "Ya'll." 

Yesterday, while I was sweating schvitzing in the D.C. Metro, I received the last phone call from Nikko for many months. Was it a little sad? Of course. Was it as bad as I thought it was going to be? Not at all. We had already had the teary and loving goodbye months ago when he visited DC and I faced the fact I wasn't going to see him for an indeterminably long amount of time. When the phone rang yesterday, I expected to feel the smallest pang in the heart; however, the pang became pain (yes...I just wrote that) when he announced that he would be making some ridiculous blog about "art, travel, God, food, and offending each country along the way."

Woof. 

The Title? Nikko Nose. Now I can't deny the fact that this is a pretty brilliant title. Not only is it a pun on the size of his mega-Aztec nose, it's also beautifully indicative of Nikko's habit of being certain that Nikko knows best. Am I anxious to see how this attribute serves him in foreign countries?...Am I ever?!?

Whether we were ready or not, the first blog post happened, and it started with, "First day in Europe ya'll..." I've never heard Nikko say "ya'll" in his entire life. I can't help but assume this is some kind of writing persona he's adapted for the blog. Exhausting? You bet. Why would he chose to adopt Southern slang upon leaving the country? For better or worse, Nikko is a representative of the American theater community while traveling in Europe and if "ya'll" is a part of that, I'm uncomfortable. 

I could wax poetic about his choice of background image (weird vintage frames on a distressed wall?) and other aesthetic choices he has made but I've decided to stay focused on the written content in hopes that occasionally I'll have something positive to say. 

His first entry is a list of things that happened on his first day. He's listed everything numerically but in paragraph form which I'll say isn't my favorite. His excitement about meeting the cast and his honesty about being an impossible roommate was charming and ultimately exciting. I may think he's an egomaniac, but I would hate to think he was having a difficult time with the company. No doubt they already find him hilarious, if not a little abrasive. His comment that in Germany you can add "gutte" before everything gives great insight to the kind of cultural insensitivity we can look forward to for the duration of his stay in Europe. He finishes the list with an anecdote about him trying to be funny with the cast and the joke failing - which isn't terribly surprising and will no doubt be a great inside joke between them for the rest of the tour. He also unnecessarily puts his character name in quotation marks for reasons that I'm not quite sure I'll ever understand. 

So he made it. The boy from Glendale, AZ made it Berlin to rehearse one of the cornerstones of the American musical theater canon. I'm glad he's safe, even if West Side Story isn't. Totally kidding. 

BRB Growing Up

It seems to me that the ages 17 to 22 are all about getting used to change and saying goodbye. Sure a couple of graduations, hopefully a few jobs, and a whole lot of loans happen as well but most importantly you learn how to embrace change and move on (and pray to god you move up).

The other day I found myself in a restaurant with a combination of people that hadn't been together since around the time we were celebrating our new driver's licenses. To a point we had kept in touch, especially two of us, but as a grouping there was certainly years to catch up on. As we discussed the theatre programs we are all graduated from this theme of changing in college came up a lot. I believe the phrase that was repeatedly used was "no one really changes, but it's important that they do a little bit"...deep, I know. You're probably like "woah.Mind?..blown." But really it all points flexibility. In a short four years you leave home for the first time and meet all new people, then year by year those people leave until eventually you leave. All the while on breaks and holidays you come home and regroup with those that you have stayed in contact with until suddenly people are getting jobs and all of us are scattered to the winds again.

After a certain point "good-bye" becomes so common. It's a meaningless phrase because you've used it so often. The only phrase with less value is the unavoidable "I miss you." True you sometimes mean it, but often times you use your recently learned super-adjustment powers and you acclimate to that person no longer being in your day-to-day life. If you actually missed them as much as you say you do you would be that emo girl who doesn't leave her bedroom and spends all of her time in every social situation texting people miles away who don't respond immediately because they're living their own lives (or they do respond because they aren't).

Don't think I'm exempt (I realize you didn't). I just said said good-bye to a best friend for the 4 millionth time since the first time I packed up and hauled off to college. But now it's a bit of an actual question mark when we will see each other again. We'll overlap on the east coast for a weekend and there is a possibility of meeting in DC but other than that, who knows?

There it is, adulthood out of no where. A world without winter breaks. A world where your parents might be sick of paying for your holiday returns. Maybe it makes more sense to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas in New York with closer friends or in DC where you now live. Given this point happens at different times for everyone but it is certainly happening to me now.

Now lets be real? In a world of facebook, cellphones, skype, and now Google+'s hang out (ps I could actually write a novel about my obsession with Google+ called 'a luddite's fascination') it's pretty much impossible and completely unnecessary for a "parting is such sweet sorrow" moment. Distance is so easily remedied by technology. Still there is something to be said for having someone with you in person, especially when you have friends that can become easily distracted. Not that I do.

I totally do.

Not that I can be that person too.

I totally can.

SO good-byes. Sad? yes. But I feel like at this point in my frequently changing life once it actually hits me that I've said good-bye, I've adjusted to the new situation. I had to embrace years ago that long distance is just the way a lot of friendships have to be and that's totally healthy and normal. If anything it gives you some place to stay when you travel.

Not that I ever have any money to travel.

Because I don't.

#youngbrokeandfabulous

The Dollarz

Those who know me know this: I am awful with my money. Absolutely awful. I can work and work and work without successfully saving a single penny. In fact, during my summers of college I would work ALL SUMMER and almost ALWAYS overdraw my bank account the first week of school. At this point the extravagant spending is pretty much a talent.

But wait. Here's the funny thing. "Extravagant spending" suggests that I'm buying cool things and living a fabulous life. But I'm so not. (ok that's a lie. I mean...fabulous things happen every day (I hate the word fabulous (catacomb of parentheses))). I'm totally your typical American 'nickle and dimed' victim. Coffee? Sure. Lunch at work? Fine. Just a banana...what's 50 cents? (but really..what's 50 cents?). I suppose what's especially dire about all of this is the fact that it's absolutely 100 percent common. Being raised in the 90s I learned that I'm special and an individual and there's no one quite like me. Well that may be true but being a broke recent college graduate with little to no hope of making legit money in the future is about as original as a racist religion.

So here's the deal. Step one to fantastically figured out financially secure life: come out of the financial closet and embrace my brokeness. I tend to ignore the details of the contents of my bank account and go off of a rough estimate of what I think is probably there (Suzie Orman just had a stroke), but starting today I'm going to face the numbers and start of a journal of my spending?

Why now? Well I'm not one for New Year's Resolutions and I figured it's the 4th of July so why not start working towards the birth of my new money sense on the day the nation was birthed (I hate every single thing about that sentence). I'm going to stop silently resenting those in control of their financial situation and stop emulating my friends with bank accounts linked to high powers (and salaries). My reality is that I have a parking ticket to pay, gas to fund for the summer, and in less than two months a move to Washington DC that will probably require 1st and last's month's rent....the rent will probably be due August 1st. I'll probably end up begging my parents and then having to pay them back and hating my life.

It's going to be really tough. I already often feel like I experience way less than a lot of people that I hang out with because of money but if I have any hope of doing anything ever I have start organizing things now. Darin mentioned mint.com, maybe that will help.

Here we go...

The Three R's

Well as much as I love Reduce Reuse Recycle, they are not the three R's i'm thinking about.

Try: Reflect, Regroup, Restructure

Lets start out with me saying that this might sound like an emo rant but it's not at all. It really is more of a "huh...well that's interesting" and less of a "hand me that razor me wrists need some lovin".

In middle school when hormones started raging and people (including myself) started coupling off I realized that this couple thing was going to be different for me. It was then I started matching people or agreeing to put in the good word with some social connection (social connection? it was 8th grade). I had a couple of relationships myself but I was always more focused on seeing what I could do to get that one girl to muster the courage to ask that special guy to dance to whatever Usher music video was being projected in the multi-purpose room.

My first year of high school I pin pointed why the relationship thing was different for me. I decided that the romantic side of life was just not a possibility for high school and I worked on other couples instead. Over the four years of high school I was a combination of Gossip Girl and Mean Girls without the money, technology, or fashion. There was a hilarious series of scandalous rumors, notes passed, and late night phone conversations. I became sort of a low profile social butterfly who just happened to be friends with a lot of different people and could spread information from group to group.

I continued in the thick of things with relationships and then senior year, with my position as a writer for the newspaper, I turned my attentions to what I could do to diagnose the problems on campus. These habits transferred to college where everything grew to a bigger scale. Scandal was more. Setting of relationships became less about someone to eat lunch with and more about the perfect match for future marriage, the late night phone conversations became later, and the amount of on campus issues to address grew as well.

Today in a professor's office I said that next year I want to relieve myself of my self-appointed duty of saving the world. I want to be more a student and less of a faculty member so that I could focus on preparing myself for post-college life. While I love my degree program and my school, a year from now the nuts and bolts of curriculum and school procedure will no longer pertain to me. It will just be me and my resume, hitting the pavement trying to find work. While discussing this with said professor, I got distracted and ended up dissecting some School of Theatre Arts issue and trying to think of potential solutions. Old habits are effing hard to break.

Anyways I guess I realized that my life would have half the dramatic discussions and my calendar would really open up if I just focused on myself and my list of priorities.

Does this sound arrogant and martyrish? Probably, and I apologize. I think this is a good goal to put into writing and hope that one day I figure out how to execute it. Maybe it's possible to be a good friend and not a solutions manual. Maybe not. I guess we'll see how this all works out.

P.S. Tucson...You're effing hot.

Typos... I mean they happen...

I have a rule about this blog where I don't really go back and fix things even read over past entries because it just doesn't feel like that sort of thing. If I were forced to rename it I would probably pick something like Spaghetti On The Wall or Word Vomit or something like that.

Anyways now that I've addressed that I'm in a bit of a pickle. (PS One time I left a jar of pickles on Nikko's couch over night and then tried to eat one the next afternoon...it was so wrong). Without going into too many details, I could potentially be standing at the precipice of a big decision (yes. I did indeed type the lyric from The Last 5 Years into google to make sure I was spelling precipice correctly). It involves my summer and many thrilling opportunities that I am very thankful to be a part of. Some part of me died a little when I realized that I was probably going to be the only one home. Still working that high school job. There was a the moment of question myself and my skill set. I wondered why everyone had the will and financial support to try something else. Why am I, once again, the one who can't afford it and therefore has to settle. Well almost instantly some doors opening but each of them with a price. I've set up an appointment to talk to Christin about it which I think will play a huge role in my decision making...but there's someone else I'm going to call on. My dad. It's weird but something tells me that he'll have a good idea of what to say. In a roundabout (oy) way my father is partially the reason for the pickle and the dichotomy of work theory and logic with the confines of my mind. He always told me to CHASE MY DREAMS! and reminded me that I'M ONLY YOUNG ONCE! However now that I am slightly less young there is the issue of money.

So though I've given you little detail here's what's on the horizon. Will Kevin chose career over financial stability? Will act against his mother and risk it all for what may be an undiscovered dream? Will Kevin finish his STUPID MODEL AND PAPER THAT ARE DUE ON THE SAME AWFUL DAY (totally unrelated but I just had to get that out there)?????

Stay Tuned/Toned/ and Terrfic.

New Haircut. New Life.

Please excuse the extremely cliche and title but it did just kind of work out that way.

I guess it all started in History of Musical Theatre. Where else right? Christin made a totally rash and unsupported statement about Prince Eric having awful hair. It seemed criminal but in the end it was pretty evocative (typical Christin). After some conversation with Nikko later that night, it was decided for me that my long hair had run its course.

Cut to the morning of the following Saturday I'm sitting in in a hysterical established called Style America. Not gonna lie, it was hood. There was multi-colored weave in the window and two cholas that were cuttin' hur. Now the last time I had a haircut in Tucson it was at the chic Ric Erickson salon. The experiences were complete polar opposites. The brilliant girl who cut my hair at Style America had no reason to sugar coat her thoughts on my hair. Some favorites were "What have you been thinking" "If your hair gonna go, It's gonna go" "Ugh You looks SO much better. You're welcome." While my aesthetic may not have been her favorite...they were all about Nikko. Of course.

I was really flattered by people's responses to the new look, but have you ever noticed that when you change your style people make it sound like you've looked like a maimed ogre for the past 10 years?
Rude.

But wait the changes aren't over yet. I took a big step and started going to Betsy's pilates class which is hard but totally fun. I accept that I look awful when I'm doing but it's enjoyable.

Anyways I thought this would be a good time to return to the blog. I need to get into the habit of non-academic writing.

Keep it real but don't forget your inner diva. She's in there somewhere.