New York Day Too Lazy To Go Count “And The Hits Just Keep On Coming”

I haven’t blogged in a long time because everything that has been happening has been too personal to vent about.

What I can tell you is my situation in Brooklyn is about to become more permanent and more stable. I am fairly certain the third roommate of this apartment is moving out and I have been offered her room.

I can’t tell you how excited I am about this possibility. I would finally be living in a real apartment with a real kitchen I would have use to with people who not only speak my language but who I adore.

My trip to Illinois was much more wonderful than it rightfully should have been given all the complications I had getting that trip coordinated. I will say that I am not going back to Illinois till I can afford a rental car. Luckily my friend Dan has eluded to the possibility of his employees having use of a monthly account with “ZipCar” which is a car rental place growing in popularity especially in New York. I think most major cities have Zip Car and if I fly into O’Hare there is no reason I wouldn’t be able to rent one of those on the companies account and use it to see everyone I wanted to see.

I am on pins and needles waiting for my friend Alex to visit, I am ecstatic about my friend Travis coming here for the critic screening of “Raymond Did It” in January and I am elated about the possibility of the movie coming out unrated and finally getting this labor of love in front of some eyeballs.

I’m feeling more and more of an urge to finish the two books I have started and I finally am getting to a point mentally and emotionally where I feel I can do that. My spiritual life is slowly be rejuvenated by being surrounded by people who are spiritually minded. My roommate Amanda has introduced me to more than a few centering and cleansing rituals that have actually focused my mind and quieted my spirit quite a bit.

Before my loved ones get freaked out she is a Christian and though I am not entirely certain I fall under that title anymore nothing I have been doing could possibly be construed as heresy, just simple breathing exercises and herbal remedies that help quiet the mind.

Leaving Lauren after our visits is always a challenge but now that I live here they are an even greater ordeal. It tears at the heart and confuses the mind and I wish our situation was less complicated. But we persevere, we overcome and we do what we can to hold on to what we have been building.

I have a short film I will be doing in January and I am still trying to get the money together to be able to hunt for auditions as strongly as I did. Never the less it doesn’t cost anything to ask for a helping hand so I have been asking my friends to shoot me any breakdowns they think I might look good for.

That’s life in the Big Apple at the moment. Stay tuned because I get the feeling that things are just going to get more hectic/interesting for me (if that’s possible).

I love you all

KH-

"Knowing doesn't make it better it just makes it new"

I was going to blog about my shitty week but I just don't have the "give a fuck" required to do that right now so instead I'll just share with you my thoughts on some new news that came to me this weekend.

I started my weekend on Saturday with a phone call to my dad. I hadn't talked to him in a while and I wanted to catch up. He gave me the news that mom's official death certificate came in and we now have the details on what killed her.

The death certificate reads "Cardiac Arrhythmia, Cardiomegaly and Left Ventricular Hypertrophy. The laymen version is heart attack as a result of heart disease. Basically even if she went to the hospital a month before she died it wouldn't have helped, she needed a heart transplant.

If she did need a transplant she was a walking time bomb. She was 50 years old, a smoker, she already had a risky surgery under her belt when she got the gastrobipass about five years before it was as safe as it is now (which isn't saying a lot), she would be at the bottom of any list in the country for a transplant.

This information of course made me fall apart for a short while but I still don't know what to do with it. It doesn't help, it doesn't make things better but it is good to know. I can't really explain it, I'm glad I know but it changes nothing.

Some teachers at my Dad's school collected a thousand dollars and donated it to the American Heart Association and I now have myself a nifty blue and orange (bears colors) rubber bracelet with an inscription on the inside that reads "In memory of Phyllis W". That isn't the only heart warming and breaking commemoration for my mom.

Sunday Travis called me and asked me if I would like to have Raymond Did It dedicated to my mom. That moves me more than any memorial that has come out of this tragedy.
I came home for a holiday trip and being in this house is unnerving but not nearly as painful as I thought it would be...that could be just because I'm still trying to hold on desperately to the denial I have fallen into. I just noticed the "alter" so to speak that my dad has set up. It has mom's ashes in a beautiful blue urn and two really amazing pictures of her next to it. Sitting next to that is making it harder for me to pretend that she is just at work right now. That might be a healthy thing I don't know.

So...is knowing better than not knowing? I guess so. Has it helped me heal? No not really.
I have no resolution for this blog, no positive parting words or a personal revelation I just have what I'm feeling. I consistent struggle, a tug of war in my soul between two beasts of my nature. My intellect that is desperate to move on, to continue going after my dream and perpetuating life as usual, and my heart, that wants to spiral into madness, rip it's robe and cry to the heavens for a release from the grip of this hole in the world that she left.

Like I said there is no point to this other than getting my thoughts on paper.

I love you all
KH-

New York Day 92-93 "No Sleep Till Brooklyn"

The last you heard from me I had just packed my entire life up again and was getting ready to leave my very first New York apartment. I don't know if I suck at packing or if I have accumulated more crap than I realize but I used to be able to fit everything into a duffle bag and back pack. I was forced to add a garbage bag to the mix.

I woke up, packed up my blanket and got ready for operation smash and grab. The goal is to get out of the apartment unnoticed and vanish like a dead beat ghost. These people don't know my last name, I only paid in cash and they have been less than hospitable since I came back from Illinois so I don't have much guilt or paranoia regarding this move.

It was a site watching a six foot four inch three hundred and fifty pound man with a hundred pounds of luggage try and "sneak" out a closet sized bedroom. Fortunately the only person in the apartment was half asleep anyway. I lug my life to the C train and transfer to the B at 145th street. This was a mistake because 145th street is way uptown Manhattan and my destination was Brooklyn and this is a local train. I could have cut the time in half had I taken the A all the way down to the Lower West Side and THAN transfered but I'm an idiot.

But if I did that I wouldn't have gotten to see the college aged girl talking to herself on the train. She wasn't homeless as far as I could tell. She was nicely dressed, looked fairly hip and way too happy for a Monday morning. I am just assuming that whatever her destination it was too exciting to keep the thoughts in her head...it kind of freaked me out.

With the help of a very kind man I met on the street I was able to carry my stuff to my friends apartment. I settle in and Dawn and Amanda cook pasta and cookies and make mint martinis. It was a fantastic time and I am so lucky I have these two as friends, they are life savers.

I have a very strong feeling of serendipity with this situation. I feel the time I spend with these two will give way to some personal growth for all of us. Even if it doesn't I know I will be getting closer to two people I respect very much.

I also got to see my first New York snow.

Today I didn't do a whole lot but reflect on things that have happened and things that might happen. I'm looking forward to my future again and with mom not being here to see this I feel a renewed sense of responsibility to truly and earnestly seek out my dreams.

She told me not to give up, when I was at the end of my rope here she told me to stick it out and so that's what I'm doing.

My boss being the insanely generous man he is agreed to pay for half my plane ticket as long as I paid him back with my sales this weekend so that trip is a go. I'm looking forward to seeing my friends and my family and mainly my woman.

I am happy that I get to do the holidays on my terms like I wanted. I'm trying to give myself a break from holidays...I'll face tradition next year when the wound of my mom's death is a bit more stale. Now, however, I'm going to see my family individually without being faced with all the memories all at once.

Christmas will still be hard but I feel I've made it a bit easier on myself.

I'm also brimming with anticipation to see my woman. We never get enough time with each other but every moment we do have is treasured.

That's all I got for you guys today. See you all next week.

I love you all

KH-

New York Day 85-91 "Three Months And Counting"

I have gone from rags to riches right back to rags. This week has been terrible for sales. It is the first week of the month, the first week after a major holiday and it's Hanukkah...all of these are bad things for comedy ticket sales and they are all happening at once.

I have money to eat I just don't know how I'm going to scratch together enough money to get home on the 12. Cross your fingers that next week is a better sales week and I pop back up to where I was last week.

On Tuesday my manager and friend (not two different people, one guy who is both of those things) asked me to go out on the town with him. I said sure and had a VERY interesting evening. He paid for all my drinks which added up to about five martinis, four shots ( I think) and four beers...I hadn't been that intoxicated in a long time.

The first bar we went to we made a bartender cry. She begged us to come drink at her bar because she was the only one there. She told us about her crappy boyfriend and my buddy left for about five minutes and came back with a thing of flowers. He said "on behalf of men everywhere I'm sorry the next one will be better" and she just starts to cry.

We than get kicked out of a bar because my friend and the bar tender of that place...lets just say she is crazy and he is intolerant of crazy. I got to hang out with a couple comedians that I know and enjoy and I got to break up a small altercation between my buddy and some coked out asshole.

I'm being vague because I don't want any debauchery involving my friend to be published on the off chance that it would make him look bad so you will have to forgive me.

At the end of the night he piled me into a cab, I went home and lost my breakfast lunch and dinner all over my fire escape.

Yesterday was my 90th day in New York. One of my friends from work was having a shitty day and my friend Lindsey was having a birthday party so I consolidated my friend responsibilities. I took Mike to Lindsey's party, arranged for him to get a couple drinks and let him loose to find some female companionship which he was able to find in the form of a fairly aggressive cougar...poor Mike didn't have a chance.

I got to hang out with friends, drink, enjoy the night and celebrate both Lindsey's birthday and my 3rd month on the same night. It was pretty fantastic.

I also did my first romantic scene the other day. I was doing a favor for some college students who's actors bailed on them. I always hear mixed things about romantic scenes, but really it wasn't any different than doing any other scene. The physical blocking is different obviously but when you are on set (at least for me) a stage kiss is just a stage kiss, in "actor world" it is non verbal dialogue.

I was lucky enough to be doing this scene with someone I know, trust and who respects the relationship I have with my woman. I also learned a few things and got a nice shot for my reel.

A couple days ago my landlord told me he needed me out of the apartment by Tuesday. So I have packed up all of my things and am moving in with some friends from Brooklyn for a little bit. The women I am staying with are so very kind and I'm lucky to have them as friends.

I just packed all my things and remembered my first night in this room. Yeah it was a shit hole but it was my shit hole. It was my first place I have ever lived in New York (leaved meaning paid rent for the place and not just couch surfing).

I still think it is a shit hole but I am going to look back at my time in this apartment fondly.

I am still aiming to be home by the 12th so be prepared for a phone call everyone.

See you in Brooklyn readers.

I love you all

KH-