A Whole New World...

A Dazzling Place I Never Knew...

Hi Family and Friends,

I'm here in New York now. It's my second day here. I'm at my friend Adrian's place in Manhattan and it's nice and warm in here. He lives in a nice studio apartment right in Midtown... close to Times Square and all that hooplah. My first day was pretty tame. I was outdoors for a grand total of about 3 hours. It was pretty flipping cold so I decided to stay in with my computer on my lap and the TV remote in my hand. I ate nachos and had NY cheesecake. I cried for a little bit then I went to sleep. It's a new day and it's not so cold. I'm waiting for my landlord to tell me if my room is ready to move into. In the meantime, I'll be staying here in noisy Manhattan.

I think today I might venture out into the wild and find something to do. It's weird to not have to go to work or do any errands yet. I don't start work at Starbucks until January 2nd. I'll be working in Astoria. Woot.

I'm SOOOO tempted to go shopping at H&M and all the other shops that I love so much here... but I am going to exhibit some self-control and stay away!
I have a few friends out here who I will be catching up with in the next few days. I'm also going to be helping my mom's friend throw a New Year’s Eve party at his beautiful apartment in Union Square. It'll be nice to be indoors for New Year’s Eve. I don't think I ever want to do the Times Square thing.

Anyway, for those of you who don't know, I will be living in Jackson Heights, Queens with a friend I met at UCSD. She was a graduate student in the MFA Acting Program. We're both renting from an older graduate of the MFA Acting program at UCSD. It's gonna be so nice to live with someone I already know!

Ok that's all I have for now. I'm working on trying to get my webcam and iChat and Skype all set
up so I can talk to you and see you online.

I'll try to keep everyone updated on my move, especially when I move into the apartment. I want you guys to see how sweet it is!

Oh and for all you folks who have been out here before, feel free to make any suggestions of places I should check out. I'm always down to try new things and see cool places.

LOVE YOU!

Z

Saturday in the City

While I was waiting for the N/R/W train at 36th Street, I saw a guy on the platform reaching up a a green fixture hanging from the top of the platform. It was making a noise. I went up to him and asked him what it was. It was an art installation that is a part of "Arts for Transit."
It's so incognito. You wouldn't know it was a piece of art if you didn't see someone interact with it or see the little placard below it.

It's so refreshing to find something like that on the subway. Plus, I made a new friend. That dude was really nice and we discovered something together.

It's moments like these that really make me appreciate where I am. During the week, everyone is rushing to work and in zombie mode. People are stomping all over each other and everyone's packed in the train like sardines. There's no time to stop and discover things like that.

It's been so hard trying to adjust to the different way of life here. Not having a car is so hard sometimes -- especially if you don't live right next to the train station. It takes a lot more energy to get around and you have to plan ahead for the whole day. It's draining and overwhelming.

But when Saturday rolls around, New York is a different place. People slow down and take time to walk. This morning I woke up and appreciated the beautiful sun shining through the windows. I walked to the nearest little coffee shop in Jackson Heights and realized how gorgeous my neighborhood is. There are so many historic apartment buildings that I've missed on my commute home. I'm always so in a rush to get back so I take the train and the bus home. But sometimes it's actually nice to walk.

I know it's gonna take me a while to adjust to this place, especially working a 9-5 job and having to deal with the rush hour chaos on the train. But I think it really helps me to appreciate the dozens of surprises I've found in New York. The rainy, snowy, slushy, cold days help me enjoy the sunny days.

Check out the art piece at MTA - Arts for Transit.

The Diary of a Sungod Stage Manager

I just want to say what an amazing time I had yesterday stage managing the Side Stage at Sungod. I got up at 6 in the morning to be at RIMAC at 8am and left the field that night around midnight (which was early compared to the rest of the folks who stayed way later to load all the equipment up). I got to meet Ben Kweller and his band, all of Ozomatli, and wear a really big headset that lets me hear everything that goes on behind the scenes of the most highly attended event at UCSD.

If you only knew what kind of hard work goes into making this event what it is... Some folks don't sleep for days trying to prepare for this. Some folks stay til the bitter end... til every single piece of equipment is packed up at 2 am. Some folks sacrifice their own safety and well-being when the mob tears down the fence and becoming a human barricade is the only option. It's insane. The festival is so intricately planned and so many people play a part in making it happen. I was lucky enough to be one of these people.

It's such a different experience being behind the scenes at Sungod. I stood backstage while Ben Kweller fans screamed every word of his songs and saw the masses jump up and down to Third Eye Blind singing "Doot doot doot, doot do doot doo, doot doot doot, doot do doot doo..." Right before Third Eye Blind finished their encore performance and Ozomatli was about to take the stage, I looked out from the stage to see RIMAC field filled up by an ocean of people. There were tens of thousands of people there. It was so exciting.

But there was a part of the behind the scenes experience that I really could have done without. It was the fact that all of the stage crew that was hired for the event were pretty much all disgusting pigs. It was hard enough for me as a five foot small woman to command a stage and its crew with barely any experience in doing so... but on top of that, I had to deal with the feeling of sleazy middle aged men looking me up and down and being way too "friendly" with me. At first I thought to myself that it was friendly banter and they were just messing with me just to mess with me... but some of the things that were said were just inappropriate. And these comments weren't limited to females... there were plenty of gay bashing homophobic comments as well. I feel like this is the culture of the folks who run shows like this: to mess around and say really inappropriate things to each other in order to keep the job fun in the midst of the intensely physically challenging work and high stress. But when it comes down to it, these guys just made me feel really uncomfortable, especially when I had to ask them to do something for me.

Of course this wasn't everyone. There were a few people that I didn't feel like I had to act tough around... only a few of those guys were truly helpful, professional, and didn't make me feel unsafe.

Overall the job was such an incredible experience. I wondered what it was like to be able to do this for a living. But at the same time, I wondered why this profession was so dominated by males (besides the fact that it takes a lot of physical strength to move crap around a stage). Furthermore, I wondered why these guys thought it was okay to mess with me like that. Was it just cuz I was little and it's hard to take orders from a tiny person? Or was it cuz I'm a woman?
It's just not fair and it's so disrepectful. It's disgusting the way most men can try and will make you feel like a piece of meat.

Anyway, that is my story for now. I'm so proud of all the people who made Sungod so successful (Seth, Alex, Di, Mary, all the AS programming folks, gosh there are SOOOO many people... the list goes on). I am so thankful for everyone who believed in me and thought that I would be a good stage manager. It was pretty challenging, but so worth it.

P.S. I wanna give a special shout-out to Seth Klonsky and Alex Miller. You guys are my heroes. I couldn't have done it without you guys and Sungod couldn't have happened without your hard work. Oh and just so you know... you both are NOT disgusting pigs... at all. Thank you.