I Fold Like a Card Table

Regina Spektor's a little bit of a weirdo, eh? She was just making dolphin sounds on this here album I'm listening to. I think I like her. Plus, she resembles Mel from The Flight of the Conchords, and my brain delights in this connection. Oh the possibilities.

Who wants to hear a random "Only in New York" story?! Me too! So I am currently job seeking (ugh I can't wait to be paid for being Kassie Cardon) and awaiting classes to start at the studio, so I have plenty of time to walk a mile round trip for a Popeye's lunch every once in a while! Those $1.50 chicken wraps are a steal, I tell you, a steal! So I'm standing third in line, excited to purchase my delicious and economical lunch when a crazy lady comes up to me from behind and to the left. Her teeth and hygiene reminded me of this lady I have featured to the right here, Ms. Winehouse. The aging woman came up to maybe my left bicep. She was, let's be honest, most likely Dominican in nature, and had long, windswept hair which had been pulled back in a ponytail. I think. I only got a good look at her face, as I stared at it in disbelief for the majority of our relationship.

"Huh?" She had demanded something of me, but I couldn't hear her over my iPod. And these are the words she spake, hand to heaven, with the authority of a mother and the entitlement of Paris Hilton: "Buy me something to eat! I'm hungry." Me: "Wha?" She repeats it, this time with impatience. "Buy me something to eat! I'm hungry!" I stared at her in disbelief. Little beady eyeballs to wide shell-shocked eyeballs. The words had stunned my brain. And I'm not gonna lie, the feelings that ended up surfacing were not ones of anger or defensiveness or annoyance. They were 70% guilt (of course) and 30% unadulterated awe. Some emotion in the respect family. This tiny woman just demanded food and/or money from me, a humongous Amazon of a white chick! I was fascinated by her. Her teeth were rotting I believe, you know, brown in the middle and more cylindrical than they should be. She was angry at me for being me. She made me feel like I had shirked some responsibility for too long, and that this directly affected her, and now was the time I was to make up for it. She made me feel like draft dodgers must have felt when they got caught. She was hungry. Her son was dying in Vietnam. And this was completely my fault.

My reaction?

"Um, ok. Well, what do you want?" I ended up just giving her a couple of bucks because we disagreed on taste. (I was willing to hook her up with one of my wraps, whilst she wanted a fancy $6.00+ value meal.) She was gone quicker than you can say "crack pipe". In-credible. Wow. That woman OWNED me.

I'm not sure if I should feel ashamed of this character flaw. Surely some sort of self preservation survival instinct should have kicked in. I might as well have had "Welcome" written across my chest and been laid at the entrance to her cardboard box. Honestly, though, I feel that she earned it. The delivery of her request alone was worth at least a biscuit.

I know what some of you are thinking. Future Kassie: "Gee, husband of mine, that slug in the face really hurt, but golly, the way your arm swung across your chest, the position of your fist, your form was PERFECT! Bravo!" I'm pretty positive this won't happen. Right? Hm. Maybe I should adjust some more brain wires.

Only in New York.

Holler back!

Long Time No Blog

Howdy! It looks like I skipped the entire month of July. Whooooops. It was crazy busy, anyway. Much too much has transpired since I moved to NYC, I would have to write several volumes to catch up. All you really need to know is that the acting program went better than anyone could've imagined, they've invited me back for the two year program, and I agreed to after some arm-twisting. :)

I'm stoked. Dreams turning to realities. Apparently that actually happens. I feel more happy and liberated than ever. Doesn't get much better than that.

I'm on vacation in Denver. Getting tan and preparing to rock the NYC fulltime. More to come.

Holler back.

Kassie

I heart (the Dominican Republic of) NY

So I know I'm a once-a-month blogger at best, but something about moving made me itchin' to get the word out that I made it to the NYC okay. If you were wondering. This picture to the left is not much of an exaggeration. I had the quintessential "moving to the big city to realize her dreams" day yesterday. Complete with a car with my full-sized bed strapped to the top (a Honda Fit, mind you; possibly the smallest hood square-footage out there), a starryish-eyed-yet-prematurely-cynical girl all alone in the driver's seat, getting turned around in Pennsylvania*, driving through midtown Manhattan in said vehicle with the windows rolled down blaring DMB, the miracle lone parking spot right in front of my brownstone, the friendly old black lady sitting on the steps with her church shoes in her hands taking a break to catch her breath and give us neighborly advice, three single lil young ladies hauling 1,000,000 lbs. of junk up to the third story (I'm so sorry. Why must I have a love affair with books WHY?!), and to end the day, the new friends sat down with cool drinks and watched the Tonys. I'm not sure it could get anymore stereotypical. Maybe I could've gotten a flat tire and had Dave Letterman change it for me. Yankee Stadium is a twenty minute walk from my home.

So, yes, folks I made it. Well, physically at least. Which is pretty much all I'll ever ask. My next goal is to search out other normal people. Normals. NYC has a stigma, at least for me, of having uber-motivated, high-achieving, back-biting talented career successes everywhere. I am not interested in these people. Although, you know, good job at all that. I'm sure your parents are proud and stuff. But surely hidden amongst the immigrants (I'm a minority in my neighborhood, btw. W00T! I will learn Dominican. Maybe I'll start with Spanglish.) and the Broadway wackos and the young money dbag's there are folks like me. Just happy to be here. Hoping to learn a thing or two that I can pass on to the kiddies one day. Make some memories.

If you ever wanna come to the City, you have a place to stay. There are a TON of hotels in this town. :)

Kassinator

You must love me...is this thing on?

See this lady to my right? See what she's doing with her body? Yeah. I can do that. Except with a slightly different facial expression. And never on a beautiful beach. And also whilst being a lot less Asian. W00 w00t!

I discovered yoga back in April and I'll never go back to regular exercise again. I saw some chicks running past the Capitol yesterday in the midday heat, and I thought, "What are you doing?? It's hot outside! That is not fun! Why do you hate you?!" Yoga is pretty much the adult equivalent of the playtime of my childhood when my friends and I would figure out what we could make our bodies do and then end it all by taking a nap. Yoga is the same thing except in a studio with a peaceful lady who walks around and reminds you to breathe when you're trying to stand on your head (apparently breathing is one of the many essential wisdoms we forget as we grow older. That and, you know, loving unconditionally, believing in people, speaking only from the heart, etc. Oh, foolish children...). And it makes you feel sexxy. Namaste!

*Subject change*

I have this open door principle that I've been trying to live by recently. It's a new thing. Mostly it just involves me taking down all of my heart-barriers, letting it tell me who and when to love and at what decibel level, and then following through, regardless of possible outcomes. It's been a wild and crazy ride! But, I have discovered a group of people in my life, probably in all our lives, that have a mysterious and enviable power of others. Let's call them The Mentalists.

The Mentalists:
Throughout my life, even when my heart was surrounded by an impenetrable fortress fortified around the perimeter by a moat filled with alligators and moatmonsters whose diet consisted only of anything bearing the slightest semblance of human or animal love, there have been people who, seemingly through no conscious effort of their own, MAKE ME WANT TO GIVE THEM THINGS. Not just things, but time and effort and myself! And not just me, but other people, too, were somehow mind-controlled into pouring down blessings and gifts and showers of love upon these people. I remember in high school, I had this sweet little friend named Kristen and she was a Mentalist. One day I was sitting at home, and out of nowhere, I remembered that Kristen liked these pink cookies from the gas station. So I went out and bought her five of them (they each were the size of a small child's head) and brought them over to her house. WHY??!! I have friends in other parts of the world who routinely have people buy all their meals, give them free stuff, pepper them with random gifts. Obviously, there are fellas who have this control over me. Undoubtedly, my husband will turn out to be one of these sneaky Mentalists. I'll probably walk around the house naked in stilettos for the first year of our marriage, with home-cooked food in one hand and the latest Sports Illustrated in the other, not because I'll feel obligated, but because I'LL WANT TO! That's the craziest thing about The Mentalists. They don't illicit unwilling servitude. They force me into willing service. And I love every minute of it.

I am not one of The Mentalists. In fact, I think I may be the opposite of a Mentalist. The people in my life who should shower me with time and love and attention don't and never have. I'm not complaining, this is a reality that I came to terms with at the very instant a person becomes able to come to terms with things (probably roughly around potty-training age; I learned to go in the big girl potty AND that life isn't fair and never will be, so move on. It was a big day for me!). And I'm improving at self-showering. But not until today, when I was driving home from doing a favor for one of The Mentalists in my life, did I open my mind to the idea that one could learn to be a Mentalist!

This is my new goal. I don't know how I'm going to do it. I would ask Roxanne, who is One, but I don't think that The Mentalists even know how they do it. It's like something they just exude. Maybe it's body chemistry. Shoot! Well, we'll see. I'm simply going to start by sending silent messages from my cerebral cortex to others like lasers and see if that has any effect. "You want to buy me ice cream!" "You want to rub my back and cuddle with me!" "I'm the greatest thing that ever happened to you!" "Give my all your money!" Huh. Sounds like a power somewhat akin to The Force. Hm. Will explore this later.

If you find yourself in the near future wanting to send me things or to love me more deeply, don't resist. It just means it's working. And we'll both enjoy the process.

Holla back,
Kass

Who knew that dreams come true?

So I have realized that people actually read this. After a while folks were like, "You need to blog again! We love reading your blog!" and my I was like, "Sweet! I'm rad!" but that thought was immediately followed by, "Aaah crap now everyone expects all your blogs to be awesome." And then I would postpone writing until I was feeling blogawesomey. Which is never. So thanks, readers, for dooming me to failure. Inevitably, this is being written in the wee hours of the morning as I'm pining for a certain fella and/or a nice, hot panini. (I hate going to bed hungry, you?) And this is what is on my mind:

Well, yesterday I went up to Manhattan for an interview with a prestigious acting conservatory. Basically I went up for a nice day off and to do some shopping, since I wasn't expecting anything else to come of it (I got some sweeeetarse heels! They're so fugley they're beautiful). Anyways, turns out they accepted me and basically my life has instantly become super duper awesome. I'm pretty much gonna ROCK you, world! NYC is gonna give me an inch and I'm gonna take the freakin highway. This is literally a dream of mine coming true: this opportunity. And I've never fully believed in the "dreams coming true" business. So, I'm sort of conflicted cuz now I have to change some personal philosophies, become less pessimistic, blah blah blah. Which is annoying, but it can't be helped.

Me and my mom's newish husband Chuck wrote and recorded some music this last weekend, too, which was rad and scary at the same time. Surely there is a word for that. Andre the Giant? This weekend was Andre the Giant. So I'm singing, readers! Just like I said I would. And to prove it to you, I'll find someone who can teach me how to put songs into blogs. And then we'll see what happens...

For those of you who are waaaay worried/kinda pissed at my decision to pursue my dreams, I am sorry. I really am. I was on your side most of my life so I feel your pain (conflicted, again). But I would like to assure you that I will not allow myself to go hungry or to turn into a criminal. And I won't ask you for money. I just ask for you to not point out how poor I am going to always be and how risky this is and how irresponsible/irrational it seems and how everyone is just gonna tell me I'm wonderful and steal my money when I'm not looking and then all of the sudden I've turned into a the ringleader of some brutal lesbian street gang. That's all I ask. You don't even have to support me! Just don't point out these things. Hey thanks!

ALSO if any of you work with me or know people who work with me, let's keep this on the DL, shall we? I value my job. I'm not retarded (well that's what momma tells me) and I am not gonna give up a good income for a summer conservatory with an unpredictable outcome. Me and the Bossman will work it out somehow, I'm fairly confident. So just leave it to me pretend we never had this conversation

Wanna know what makes the world go round? Love. Chew on that until next time.

Holler back.

When I grow up I want to want to be something

I just ate one of those strawberry hard candies and it was good, but here's the thing - it was after I brushed my teef. You heard me! It's my way of sticking it to the Man. I found the candy on the kitchen table. Not sure where it came from. I hope it wasn't poisoned. Crap.

Uh so yes it is a New Year and I honestly feel like one million bucks. Probably even a gazillion. But here's how I feel about New Year's Resolutions: Meh. Really? Once a year we're encouraged to improve our lives? (That's a lot of pressure. Why not a little all the time?) I'm not totally into it, but I'm all about moving on and moving up. Something strange has happened to me this year. Instead of me making a New Year's resolution, the New Year actually resolved me. I feel like someone sat down and completed the disarrayed jigsaw puzzle that was Kassie while I stepped out of introspection for the holidays. Also, I seem to have misplaced a lot of my fear. I'm not sure where I had it last. I must have left them in my other year. Regardless, I'm feeling rather at a loss for anxiety and I'm loving it. Fear is for suckers! Fear of change. Fear of spiders. Fear of yourself. Nick Nolte. Well...warranted.

Does anyone remember what they used to say they wanted to be when they grew up? I don't remember ever planning on anything specific. I think I was just hoping to make it past eleven, but I'm sure if I had thought about it, it wouldn't have been International AOG Logistics (not that I am not very grateful for my current job W00T ECONOMY!). So I'm asking myself now. And I suggest you do the same. If you can change something in your life to make it more ideal, do it! Especially if the only thing really holding you up is fear. Break up with the deadweight. Ask dreamgirl out. Apply for that program. Wear those shoes with that shirt - it looks stupid, but just own it. Don't give a damn. Do eet.

Here is what's funny about me: I sing. And I write. I think maybe three of you know this. Actually perhaps a couple more due to my cheap-arse Christmas presents to you all this year (I recorded myself in my bathroom, and it was straight from the heart, my loves). Anywho, I'm thinking this year I'm gonna work on getting a record deal. This will be a goal. Now, you're laughing or at least worrying about my sanity (aaw thanks!) and questioning whether or not you actually ever really knew me (or whether or not you actually really know anyone and who are you, anyway?). Either way, then fantastic! Isn't that the best?! When someone you know plans something either really awesome or really ridiculous?! It makes life more interesting for one and all.

I'm going to sing this year. What are you gonna do? I hope it's awesome. And if it embarrasses the hell out of your family, then even better.

I promise I won't quit my day job. Yet. :) Long live the marine biologists and the ballerinas and the astronauts inside each of us.

Holla Back.