🇺🇸❤️2024: WHAT THE HELL❤️🇺🇸
For the past few years, this blog has featured a number of highlights of the years commensurate with how many years into the decade we were (ie “23 Highlights for 2023”). But wow, what a truly strange time to be jerking my ego off. I know I expressed this reluctance four years ago… and four years before that. But here I go again— finding a time to celebrate… or at least archive ME in 2024.
And shocker…LESS EGO STROKES THAN THE LAST TWO YEARS!
1. I found the love of my life.
Let’s start with the good stuff. After thinking I was going to just wander the apps forever, catching nothing but dead fish in my net, I finally found someone I could spend a hell of a lot of lifetime with. We’re in love, y’all! I feel so happy to finally know there’s someone out there for weird weird me.
Will let you do the spy work on my IG to figure out who this is. It’s not a big secret. And shocker, it’s not the NBA superstar that I’ve been insisting I’ve been married to for the last 5 years. I’ve done a rare thing to be pretty out about how in love I am because for many years valued having a part of my life that wasn’t constantly put up like a show.
I kinda was getting to a place where I had stopped believing in relationships, “the one”, or whatever. I was actually fine to die alone. I even briefly looked into going on one of those cougar reality tv dating shows because why not get followers while throwing myself at some 20-something “entrepreneur digital creator type”, right? It didn’t have to come to that though, I found love.
2. I deleted Twitter. I still call it by its deadname.
About 8 years ago I was named as Trump’s #2 Twitter Troll by publication of note, Black Enterprise. But honestly, I couldn’t stand (F)Elon’s cess pool anymore, even if just to dump my Wordle scores. So I got the hell off. You can find me on BlueSky and Threads. But honestly, I don’t even know what all this short attention span spewing on the internet even is anymore.
3. I did a 40 show run of “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord” at ACT in San Francisco in what looks to be the final run of the show ever.
This really killed me. On so many levels. 95 minutes. No understudy. Re-enacting 554 days of the pandemic. 40 FREAKING SHOWS. It was surreal to do this San Francisco run. To live in a fancy doorman apartment for a month and a half near the theater. But also to see my hometown ravaged by the exodus of tech bros, the aftereffects of pandemic and fentanyl. I was supported by so many people from my past and that’s what felt most meaningful about bringing this show home. The nausea of throwing myself into every show was made better by seeing humans in the lobby. Some from my past, some from my future. Knowing that we were still alive.
As this show played out, so did real life. I watched the graduate school I attended go out of business in what seems to be a sad epidemic of liberal arts education dying off when not being vilified as being “woke DEI”. I felt increasingly discouraged that the upcoming election wasn’t going to turn out the way I wanted. In my insomnia after each evening show, I also watched livestreams of student protestors at UCLA and other campuses. I felt helpless watching them attacked by police and counter protestors, left unprotected by campus administrators. There was a lot of helplessness this year.
4. I had some pretty validating moments with local Bay Area press, including the man jumping on the chair review!
If you grew up in San Francisco reading the pink section on Sundays, you know what a big deal this was to see that cartoon man giving me the best review ever. Sure, he is critiqued rightfully as a bastion of white supremacy and reductive cultural assessment– but he is MY bastion of white supremacy and reduction dammit!
5. I officiated my friends’ wedding. I was so good at it.
I should have been working on a lot of things this summer, but found myself crafting some officiant language to perfection for two longtime friends. There’s no video but when I say I was HILARIOUS, I was freaking hilarious. I had built into the vow “Do you promise to add him to your health insurance plan and keep him on your health insurance, for as long as you both shall live?”
It was a really fun wedding. Honored to be part of this amazing couple’s memories.
6. I’m in a Human Atlas.
Last year I got a call that I would be in an Atlas of Los Angeles with 100 hand picked Angelenos. They tested my DNA (turns out I’m 2-3% Korean) as part of it. It’s all part of the PST: Art and Science Collide projects happening all over the city. These beautiful Atlases are forever or at least in hardback.
7. I had my heart broken by this country… again… and again.
What to say but I enter four more years of this shit with complete numbness. I feel defeated, broken, and almost accepting that we may all be dead at the end of the next four years. And that’s the good part.
8. Said goodbye.
A lot of sad passings this year including my family’s matriarch. I lost a few friends who I will name. Among them Peter J. Harris, Morgan Jenness, Sean Elwood, Aziza Barnes, Gil Kaan… I am surely forgetting some names because there was so much loss. I’m sort of left realizing one day you are here. The next day, you leave.
9. I went back to therapy.
In the pandemic, I somehow fell off my therapist’s call rotation and figured that other clients needed her more than me (all the martyrdom of running the Auntie Sewing Squad was what I needed to keep me moving with purpose, if not, mostly, panic). After loved ones were dying, I realized I had no idea how to deal with grief. I still have no idea.
Even with the crappiest tier of Kaiser Permanente health insurance, I can see an online therapist free as often as I want! I don’t know if it’s helping at all, but man what a world of difference it would have been twenty years ago to have unlimited access to therapy by video, with no co-pay!
10. Engagements. All over the country.
In New Hampshire!
Some of the places I ended up this year as an artist:
Dartmouth College— Performing “Kristina Wong for Public Office”. The show about how I ran and won local public office. In what might be the last of that show as this re-election of you know has ruined satire for everyone.
San Francisco (40 shows at ACT!)
Oakland, CA where I gave a KEYNOTE ADDRESS AT AANHPI Summit
"1st International Latinidades Arts Symposium" in Dallas
UArts Philadelphia (which ended up closing after the semester… not my fault, I swear!)
Garden City, NY at Adelphi U (an incredible weeklong NYTW residency to work on the show)
Catskill Art Space (an amazing residency working on my new show)
New York City (showed the show in progress!!)
San Diego (awards presenting at the Pacific Arts Movement Gala)
Los Angeles (yes, I live here but need to give a shout out to Center Theater Group for giving me a week long residency to work out the show). I also did a show at the food bank that the Kennedy Center documented!
🙋‍♀️ Also! My vagina was also on display in Harlem. I only got to see it after the show from the street.
11. Finished the manuscript for a kids book!
Here’s the writing team!!!
With my incredible co-writers, we finished the manuscript for “Auntie Kristina’s Guide to Asian American Activism” which won’t be out until 2026 via Beaming Books… I know, but we have a fabulous illustrator who needs the time to draw it up! Believe me when I say that writing is an absolute labor of love.
12. I joined the YMCA last week!
I was really hating my body in the last few months. Not recognizing it. Outgrowing most of my pants. My skin has been getting super dry. I was trying to walk my 10k in daily steps, but it wasn’t enough because I was feeling like crap. I finally just had it last week and signed up for the Y. And I’m so happy about it! My body already is changing back to a more lively fit self. Being in a Zumba class with ladies speaking to each other in Korean and Spanish, laughing together, it all just makes me feel like the promise of America is possible. Group fitness classes… I 10/10 recommend for tackling depression, ailing health and loneliness.
13. In my final year of both my ASU Gammage Artist in Residency and Kennedy Center Social Practice Artist Fellowship.
What a gift it’s been to have support like I never knew from these two major arts entities. I also got a lot of help from En Garde Arts and the David M Milch Family Foundation. A lot of time spent in Tempe, AZ meeting organizations and people related to food insecurity. And this show is going to be incredible! Premiering April 5 at ASU Gammage!
14. Made major strides on this new show!
If you told me three years ago that I’d be writing a solo musical about food banks, I’d tell you to go home. But that’s what’s happening. Hundreds of hours of reading, research and site visits has to get distilled into some kind of theatrical presentation. And I figured it out. A one woman singing karaoke musical. Will this bomb? It’s happening no matter what on April 5 and beyond!
15. Gave a lot of myself to non-profits and orgs.
I sit on three boards. I’m super proud of the Lunar New Year dinner I helped put together for API RISE. We later put on a ten year gala in October that raised a lot of money! I also sit on the Boards of New York Theater Workshop and Creative Capital. And I just gave as much as I could handle to who I could. I know I didn’t hit everyone but I tried.
16. Breaking world’s slowest ground on podcast.
Wish I could link the episodes to Killing Your Number but right now we’re in a million audio pieces on our producer’s hard drive. This podcast is coming though… I swear…
17. I was locked out of Facebook for almost two months with no hope I’d ever get back in. It was oddly emotional and threw me into an unnecessary existential crisis.
It wasn’t Facebook jail. Though I’ve been there before. I had unknowingly set up 2-factor authentication and wasn’t able to figure out how to use it to get into my account. And Facebook is a frustrating site with no clear pathways to technical support. It was just an endless loop of “Sorry, this isn’t working now.” I really was losing my mind about this.
I have a lot of my life, my marketing, and my memories up on Facebook. I also coordinated a national mutual aid effort through Facebook. A lot of my personal messages happen through it. I have three global backpacking jaunts documented on it. So it was a lot to mourn. Facebook is such a disjointed mess that they would send me texts and emails to tell me that someone had commented or tagged me in something, and yet, the same site wouldn’t give me an option to log in.
And what was more bizarre was while I couldn’t login to see my old posts on Facebook, the rest of the world could. It was as if my digital home had the door wide open and I was the only one locked out. I felt vulnerable. Like I had lost control of parts of my life.
This went on for about two months.
I can’t disclose how I got access to my account again but it involved calling friends I know who work inside… I got back in just after the election ended. There were fewer missed messages than I thought there would be. I also got used to using it less.
18. ZERO VACATIONS
Many years ago, I had made this commitment to take a non-work related trip out of the country once a year. Last year, the closest I got to pure vacation was Hawaii for the marathon. It didn’t happen at all this year. I went to two different comic-cons (SD and NY) with my partner for his work and saw a ton of theater in whatever town I was in. But yeah… I didn’t really get that totally unplug break I needed where I just wander someone else’s land, don’t think about everything as being research for some show, and let being a big dumb tourist refresh me.
I bid on an all inclusive Mexican vacation in a charity auction and won it. So the plan is to at least do that next year.
19. I spent $560.80 on groceries for the entire year.
Yep. Your girl figured out in 2020 that if you obsessively track one line item in your budget all year long, you can get that much more conscious about spending and saving in all areas of your life. I suck at tracking everything, but I can track at least one thing which is grocery spending. And no, it does not include restaurant eating. Because that amount clearly is TOO MUCH. If you are wondering how that number is so low, you can thank the muse of my newest show World Harvest Food Bank that offers a giant cart of food for $50. I often split this cart with friends.
20. Embracing a BUY NOTHING YEAR kinda vibe in 2025.
Made this dog bed cover out of an old dress. She proceeded to chew it up minutes later. But it has prolonged the life of the bed which would have been thrown out.
If you see my new show, “Kristina Wong, #FoodBankInfluencer” and even if you remember what I had to say about Auntie Sewing Squad, you will hopefully glean that I’ve been really interested in getting into community interdependence over capitalism. One big strategy for dealing with the fascism ahead is to figure out how to buy less shit, share more (a la Buy Nothing Groups and community fridges), repair or use what I already have, and put more of my money directly into the hands of small businesses and individual people. Easier said than done. But I’m really trying to save a lot of money in the next few years, meal plan, indulge in experiences over stuff.
21. But “Buy Nothing” still seem to not apply to theater. As I watch hella theater.
Just me crashing this red carpet pic with the cast of The Office.
No idea what the theater count was for me this year but it was a lot of shows. I easily clock in way more time at the theater than watching scripted tv and film.
22. Journaled less.
I was pretty good at the morning pages in the last few years. But I haven’t been writing stuff down the way I used to. Either because the morning shot me out of bed with no time for reflection. I also feel like some stuff was too hard to write down. Not sure if this actually is good or avoidant.
23. Cleared a few big piles, made some smaller new ones.
I did a home renovation starting in 2021 which ended up taking a year longer than planned and costing way more than I budgeted. I never quite put back some of the things that the contractors moved because I had created such incredible jenga piles of stuff. All the running around and touring made it hard to stop and attack some of these piles. And instead, I’d tuck more stuff into the piles. I still have a pyramid of paint cans on my balcony that are driving me nuts.
But I did pay a professional to help deep clean my home and she got my office more organized than it’s been in 10 years. It still has a long way to go. I also finally dug through this skyscraper of containers of god knows what and thinned through it. This was huge for me.
For those who have weird guilt about giving your stuff to Goodwill because you know it won’t actually get sold to someone, I found that if I put items out at the community fridge that people will take them. This makes me feel a little better about rehoming my stuff. I was also able to put a lot of winter use items in boxes to Team Brownsville that I know they will distribute to asylum seekers.
24. A lot of stuff half way done.
Books, screenplays, pilot scripts, a play for other actors.... You name it… I have it half written. But I intend to finish it all… Soon. Soon!!!
Anyway, that was the wrap/ warp. I hope I can type an updated in a way that feels less exhausted this time come 2025.