Kimmy in the City

Um, so I can’t sleep as usual and my mind is wandering about some pretty retarded things I though I’d share. 

    First off, what did we EVER do without cell phones?  I mean, I have a SERIOUS relationship with mine…and I am talkin serious….marriage.  Now, let’s take a trip down memory lane back to the good ol’ days of yester into high school, circa 1996.  I mean, we had to beg our parents for pagers (yes, pagers kids…)  When we’d get a page, we would drive our asses all the way to the nearest gas station and use a …..gulp…..PAY PHONE…. to return the page.  Yup, I said it.  It’s all out on the table….we used pay phones.  Can’t you just see it?  Ten years from now we will be reliving the old glory days with our kids and, instead of the old “I had to walk 10 miles to school every day” speech, we will be explaining what pay phones were along with why and how we had to use them.  Our children simply won’t be able to comprehend such a burden. Now, you may be asking yourself why a 16-year old would possibly need a pager. This is a great question.  Well, for starters, what else is there to do in the suburbs of Chicago besides drive around aimlessly and hope someone will page you so can pull over and call them back?  Not much people, not much.  BUT, it was absolutly crucial to our social status to be notified at all times which local park the cool kids were at, only to drive there and hang out for 10 minutes before we were kicked out to yet another park.  And people actually say high school wasn’t fun??  I don’t buy it. 

  Ok, now let’s all revisit our first cell phone (a.k.a. car phone/Zach Morris phone).  It was a giant, and I mean GIANT heavy tube with a thick, black, coily wire you hooked into your car lighter that was to be used for “EMERGENCIES ONLY ” since it cost 52.00 a minute.  Come to think if it, Zach Morris must have racked up quite the bill talking to Kelly Kapowski as much as he did.

    When the phone rang with an actual ‘ringing’ sound, (Yes, those were the pre-bling tone days…can you imagine such a monstrosity??) you had to flip the giant panel down and scream, so the grainy voice at the other end (which was almost always your mom telling you to come home for dinner) could hear you.  How did I ever live like this??  It seems like such a wasted youth!  Can you imagine how much easier cheating on tests would be via text message?  Shit, I could have gotten into Harvard had they come out with that heavenly piece of technology just a wee bit earlier!  But hey, they say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?  This would explain why I am the rock solid person that I am today.

     Now, I know we all agree that facebook is pretty AWESOME. I mean, It has enabled me to find old friends from high school, talk to friends I wouldn’t normally communicate with all that much, and decorate my page with photo albums and pictures with my face superimposed onto Arnold Scherzinger and Chucky-the-homicidal-doll’s body.  So, that being said, don’t rain on my parade by writing me on here with a “Hey sexy, what’s shakin?  We’d be good together hot stuff”  (This, my friends, is an actually email I received) I mean, what do you expect me to answer you with?  “OMG thanks SO much for the lovely compliments!  I am just so flattered!  And I agree, we are OBVIOUSLY a match!”

  For those of you who don’t know who you are, I will post some simple questions to ask yourself before emailing me or any girl on here for that matter.  If you answer any of these questions with a “yes” then please don’t email me….or anyone with a vagina for that matter.

1.)  Am I over the age of 40 and still using the words “hotstuff”, or “chillin’”

2.)  Am I a fat, bald, divorcee who wears a toupee?

3.) Is my facebook name something like “Hungwell8″ or “Big papa22″ ?

4.) Am I from the Jersey shore or Staten Island (Nothing wrong with these lovely places, of course) and my idea of a good time is to come into the city wearing a child size tight black T-shirt and go clubbing whereupon I wiggle and rub up on poor innocent victims who simply want to go out and dance?

5.)  Do I wear my shirt unbuttoned to my belly button with 28 gold chains around my neck and drive a car with hydraulics and neon lights underneath?

6.)  Use phrases on a regular basis such as “sexy mama” and “sweet lips”

7.)  Am I married.

8.)  Am I crazy?

9.)  Am I gay?  (This one applies primarily to men in NYC who are overexposed to fashion and musical theatre.)

  That about sums it up.  If you answer yes to these, please, please don’t procreate….ever.

That’s all for today for today, folks.  See you on Facebook.

***I just transferred this from an old blog as I am updating the site . Enjoy.

 10 reasons why I love New York:

1.) Homeless men have Ipods. True Story

2.)  A 10 X 10 apartment being listed as a “size-able” room and easily going for $1400/month/

3.)  The restaurant industry here is so desperate to compete since there are 239847293847389478934 of them on any given block that you will find that dining is less about eating these days and more about ninjas  and their dueling sword fights, clown tightropists balancing on wires above your head while you eat chicken parm, and your waiters being dressed as martians.  

4.)  Only here can you get fat-free/sugar-free/calorie-free/lactose-free/carb-free/yogurt-free frozen yogurt and happily accept it as ice cream.

5.)  When it gets nice outside, the entire city immediately throws on their bathing suits and heads to a giant chunk of grassy land as if there were actual water anywhere in sight.

6.)  You can overhear people on their cell phones as they walk around the city saying things like, “No…I swear….he shoved a giant hot dog up there!   I know….kinky, right?”  (again, I could not make these things up if I tried.)

7.)  Dating someone on the East side is considered a long distance relationship.

8.)  Sitting on a train any given day of the week you can expect to see a mariachi band, a homeless person who has shat/pissed themselves holding a .40 in a brown paper and asking (well, what I think was asking since their words were quite slurred) for money to feed their “shungryy chillllldfren”, An old Asian woman selling used dreidels, broken yo-yo’s, a pink hammer, and a pack of Double A batteries. A man with no teeth singing opera, and a fat woman with halitosis who has tourettes.  And these things are all considered quite normal.

9.)  If you stop at any corner and look around you will spot at least 7 Starbucks…..And waiting for a double tall skim half-calf sugar/free dulche de leche macciato blended cream frappacino for more than 2 minutes is HIGHLY unacceptable.

10.)  Summer in the city boasts a blend of some of the world’s most interesting smells.  Among them;  Hot horse poop, rotting pee on asphalt, warm garbage, roasting sugar-coated peanuts, and bubbling doggy doo doo from owners who think picking up their dog’s shit is optional.  mmmmmm

 So, I just started taking a class appropriately entitled, “Change your book/change you life”, which is pretty bitchin’ because I kind of need to do both (the latter more so than the former).  So, as I was sitting there last night watching my classmate’s mock auditions desperately trying to pay attention and stop my mind from daydreaming about cupcakes and mullets, and I started taking inventory of all the humiliating auditions I’ve had since moving to the city….and realized just how many of these I have had.

    There was the time during a “Princesses” audition that I went to do a handstand (on the wrong side) and kicked Ellyn Marsh in the face making her nose bleed profusely.

Rob Ashford: Oh my gosh, are you ok??

Ellyn: (holding nose, tears running down) yes…yes I am totally fine (blood seeping through fingers) I barely feel it.

Rob Ashford: (stares blankly at Kim) It’s the other leg.

Kim: (desperately begins thinking of alternate careers)

    Then there was the time that my bare breast popped out during an audition for Wicked.  I was so into “popular”….jumping around and being my adorable self (and already mentally signing my contract)… until I felt a draft. On my tit.  So I look down and yup….there’s my areola standing out and proud for all to see.  I didn’t book the job. weird.

    So, by some grace of God I am called in for another role in the same show (which admittedly I am wrong for).  If you do not know the show, there is a character who is paralyzed from the waist down and in a wheelchair…this is important information.

Reader playing Boq: “Ive asked you to call me Nessarose, remember?”

Me: (gets up from chair with conviction and goes to him) “Boq!!!”

Reader playing Boq: (blinks silently stunned)

Me: (realizes she’s an asshole) (Turns to creative team) “Um….it’s a miracle…my legs work!

Creative team: (ripping up my headshot)

    And I am sure most actors out there know the stabbing fear that comes in those dance callbacks where they call, “5…6..7….8″ and you realize you have absolutely no idea what the first step is…let alone the entire combination.  Some actors handle this with grace and dignity by making a joke about their ‘brain fart’ or something to that effect.  And then there are other actors who stand completely still while people dance around them and begin to cry.  These actors have names that rhyme with Shmimmy Downell.

    And more recently I was in front of a very large creative team for the little roller-skating-musical-that-could, called Xanadu.  I had gone in wearing the same dress on 3 previous occasions for them, and the day before my agent called me and asked me to wear something reminiscent of a Grecian Goddess for the final aud.  So, I’m mid-audition dazzling them with my freakish talents, when they ask me to do the scene one more time…but this time in the style of a Midwestern Cheerleader auditioning for the Fresh Prince of Ben Aire….not really sure what that meant, but I will try anything..and so I went for it.  Forgetting I was wearing a long dress, I jump up confidently into a pike position before I begin the scene.  

Me (on floor): (opens eyes and sees ceiling and 8 terrified faces hovering over me) 

Creative team: Oh My God!!  Are you ok?  Should we call 911????

Me: Um…who am I?  No…I mean…I am fine.  I meant to do that.

Creative Team: I think you have a concussion.

Me: I am pretty sure you are correct about this.

***I did end up with a small concussion. and this was before I put on the roller skates. Again, didn’t book the job.  very strange.

    This brings me to another story my friend Danny just told me about a particularly awkward audition he had recently;

Danny: So…during “Why God Why” they made the accompanist play the ENTIRE 40 bar musical montage!

Me: Oh God….so what did you do??

Danny:  I walked over to the piano, started to sweat, and tried to feel something.

I do hear about hilariously bad auditions from time to time, but I kiiiiind of feel I may have the monopoly on these.  Just saying.

    On the rare occasions that I do drag my ass to the gym, I usually follow a fairly simple routine…

1) Insert headphones.

2) Turn on music

3) Begin movement on elliptical machine

4) Glance at the clock every minute in complete shock that it’s only been a minute since I last glanced at the clock, and

5) Wish the entire time that I was sitting on my bed watching Millionaire Matchmaker and eating a snickers bar.
    Well, today I got there and realized that I had forgotten my IPOD. I SERIOUSLY considered turning around and leaving. But, since my clothes have gotten deceptively tighter the last few weeks, I resolved to stay. Go me. I thought it would be pure agony (even more than usual) without having Britney’s thumping beat underneath me, but it was actually kind of amusing. Instead of zoning out to “I’m a Slaaaaave….for you” remembering the days Britney wasn’t completely bat-shit-crazy performing on MTV with a giant Python around her neck and making even the most flat-ab’d 20-something female feel like an over-the-hill sumo wrestler, I got a chance to really look around my gym for the first time. I had no idea NY gyms could be so hilarious.
    In one corner, there are the “I am short but I am going to overcompensate by making my muscles really really giant so that my arms don’t touch my sides” men. I love these pint size He-men….watching them is simply fascinating. Every single one lifts a GARGANTUAN barbell, grunts enthusiastically, sets the weight down, immediately goes to the mirror to and flexes their too-giant-for-my-tiny-body muscles, sighs proudly, then goes back and does it all again. Poor bastards….I fear they may be compensating for other….um….shortcomings (no pun intended).
    Then on the opposite corner you have the “too cool for school” girls who walk on the treadmill so slowly my 99 year-old grandfather could breeze past, while wearing black aviator sunglasses (my gym is in a basement….and has no windows), sipping on a grande triple shot mocha latte, reading Usweekly, and talking on their bedazzled blackberries. I giggled when I saw that one of them was wearing huge gold hoop earrings and repeatedly saying, “Shut up!!! No YOU shut up!!!” into her iphone as she “worked out”.
    Then you have the gays blatantly cruising one another while bopping up and down on stair-masters (my gym is in the theater district…nuff said). I love watching homos eye-f*** each other with the subtlety of a 350 lb. woman at a nudist colony. I mean…..it’s actually kind of refreshing. There’s none of that “does he like me?/Is he looking my way” bullshit that most women have to deal with. With them it’s more like, “I am mentally putting your dingaling in my mouth and ***content censored because my mother reads this***. I kind of envy their oddly aggressive dating behavior, although I always think it’s nasty when guys hit on me at the gym when I am sweating like a whore in church.
    And since my gym is blessed with tanning beds, you have the constant stream of tanorexics hoping to turn their brown/orange leathery skin just one shade darker to achieve the perfect I-live-in-Sub-Sahara-Africa tan….in new york. In march.

    So next time you are caught at the gym without your IPOD, open your eyes and look around….there is a whole gym full of weird crazy people just BEGGING to be seen.

Wow. Tonight’s Bachelor…I don’t even know where to begin.  I thought it took a giant, steaming pile-of–diarrhea turn for the worse after the most-annoying-host-ever-to-have-lived, Chris, announced that “Out of respect for the parties involved, there will be no audience here tonight.” This was said just before Jason broke up with Melissa……on national television. I mean…. obviously having your fiancee dump you the plain ‘ol run-of-the-mill way just wasn’t dramatic enough for ABC.  I did learn some very interesting things though…

So, I was watching Laguna Beach reruns on the N Network last night and found myself A) Feeling jealous of 17 year olds, B) Realizing it’s sad that I was feeling jealous of 18 year olds, and C) Realizing it’s sadder that I was watching the “N-network for teens” at 29 than it was to be feeling jealous of them.

Do you ever find yourself on facebook looking at pictures of people that you totally don’t know? (”Oh!…so-and-so was tagged in Suzy Smith’s photos! Why don’t I look at all of Suzy Smith’s photos….and entire profile while I’m at it! And then let me google her to find out everything there is to know about her from the time she was conceived until present day!”…….anyone?)…only to realize you have wasted a half hour on Suzy Smith who lives in Duluth and whom you will probably never meet?  Now that we have things like facebook and myspace, it is so easy to peek into other people’s lives.  I mean…is it really any different than peeking into someone’s windows at night wearing only a loincloth and some assless chaps? I think not. Sometimes it’s creepy how much of us is really out there on display for anyone and everyone to see.  On this note, I got a very disturbed message from my mother today who is A) embarrassed of this blog B) wonders where she went wrong in raising me, and  C) is CONVINCED that this will prevent me from ever getting a job or husband in the future…and that I will be 62 and still asking her for help with the rent. ***Side note: C is a very real possibility.

Today, I typed an essay on my friend’s computer, so she forwarded it to me in a email and she made the subject “here bitch” as a joke. I then went to email the essay to my teacher. I forwarded it thinking nothing of it only to realize that I didn’t change the subject name. ~Fmylife.com

So, as we all know, times are tough right bow bla bla. I have decided to blame the recession for anything and everything that goes wrong in my life. Getting fat? it’s the recession. Walk into a glass door thinking it was open (true story)?…Recession. The theme of every actor I know seems to be “crap…what should I do with my life now” It hasn’t really occurred to any of us until now that we may have to actually make money and support ourselves some day. I mean, how DARE my parents tell me I need to get a job and stop living off their payroll. I mean…..I’m only 29!!!! So, I did a little personal inventory this summer. I sat down with a pen and paper and began listing all of my other talents and areas of expertise. The finished product read as follows: Talents:

1) Facebook,

2) Eating large quantities of dessert,

3) Bedazzling useless things.

Oddly enough, I did some research and found out that none of these things pay. Weird. So, I did some more thinking and realized that I have always gravitated toward crazy people. I am in theater after all, so quantities are not scarce. So, I proudly decided that I would heal the crazies and thus save the world from ultimate destruction. I was on such a high from this revelation that I triumphantly volunteered with the New York State Psychiatric Hospital. From there, I was assigned to help out with teenagers at the psychiatric hospital in-patient high school. PERFECT! I loved high school. This will be a breeze. I show up 10 minutes early with a smile of my face and a spring in my step just THINKING about how grateful these kids will be when I heal them and make the world a better place. I mean, I am SUCH a good person, right??! I walk in the door and announce that I am Kim! And I am here…let the healing begin!!!! A wad of paper is immediately hurled at my head. Strangely enough, the experience doesn’t play out exactly as I had imagined. it was less…tears of joy and changing people’s lives , and more ….verbal assaults and things thrown at my body (these have included, but are not limited to, spitballs, gum, a book, wads of paper, and an orange.) Here is a typical conversation;

Kim: “Hi! Can I help you with your homework?”

asshole adolescent: “Go fuck yourself”

Kim: (blinks silently) or

Teacher: “Kim, can you show them how to solve this equation while I have a meeting with (insert crazy student’s name)?”

Kim: (Stares at freshman year math problem realizing she has no idea how to solve it. Then realizes that is sad)

So, after a few months there I was feeling quite under-appreciated, and I asked to volunteer with another unit. Fortunately, there was an opening in a different area and, before I knew it, I was all set up to conduct patient interviews……in the anorexia ward. I think I could possibly be the worst person for this job. Instead of taking notes about their triggers and day to day problems in the ward, I find myself wanting to ask, “So….can you give me any diet tips??” I am in awe of their will power when I cannot end my passionate love affair with ice cream. I also get assignments on other wards from time to time, and was put with a patient on the schizophrenia a few weeks back. This was my first experience on that ward;

Kim: “Ok so, what do you to in your free time? Read books? Magazines?”

Crazy schizo patient: “No..they won’t let me have books or magazines here”

Kim: “Really?? why? That seems odd.”

Crazy schizo: “Cause I tend make them into weapons and put people in the hospital.” ****note that I had given him paper and a pen (which I found out later he also “tends” to use to stab people with)

Kim: (frantically looks around for closest exit)

Crazy schizo: (sensing my terror): “Oh…don’t worry I haven’t done that in over a week.”

“Today, I met this really attractive guy who introduced himself as Wyan. He was really cool and sweet and we got along pretty well. Then someone informed me that his name is Ryan and that he has a speech impediment, AFTER I had been referring to him as Wyan for quite some time.”~www.fmylife.com

This quote today reminded me of my freshman year of college. I was at some lame Orientation event sitting in a group of people introducing ourselves. Let me preface this by saying we were all acting students…and usually when someone says they are an actor, one can infer that they probably possess a relatively high communication skill set. So anyway, we are all going around the circle introducing ourselves and telling stories when we get to this guy who, in the middle of his introduction, starts to stutter a bit. Now I don’t know about you, but my mind works really fast and I tend to switch from topic to topic with lightening speed. Because of this, I get twisted in my words from time to time. So, I start to giggle and yell “Ta Ta Ta Today Junior!!!!” (a line from one of the most profound movies of our time…Billy Madison). No one laughs. About an hour later we leave the group and my friend tells me that the kid I yelled at has a SERIOUS stuttering problem. He was eventually cut from the program as a result. oops.

Another story that could have been ripped from the pages of fmylife happened the same year as the story above. My mom had this good friend who worked at school with her. She just adored this woman and had been trying to set me up with her son, TJ, for years. Well, TJ eventually moved to New York and I was going to be up there for an audition one weekend, so my mom took it upon herself to give me his number and begged me to meet up with him. She was so excited and convinced we were going to fall instantly in love and get married. I decided “hey, what do I have to lose??” and called him. I was kind of nervous, so I dragged my friend Natalie to the bar with me as my wingwoman of sorts. Well, TJ shows up and he’s gorgeous and funny all in one. I did a silent shout out to my mother as I shook his hand. 2 Minutes later I was also shaking the hand of Beth….his girlfriend.