My Father Died, and I'm Moving Back to New York

• The Other Project has rekindled something in me. Each time I work on it, I am reminded that there are STILL original stories to be told. So Hollywood and Broadway better listen up.

MONDAY -- May the 4th be with you!

• 5:37am = Water bill, light, meditation, movement, AC off, window open, candle, brew (with dried apricots and ginger), shroom, hydrate.

• Watched Season 1, Episode 1 of Huang's World on Hulu. He goes to Jamaica. And now I want to make kochari, and dongo dongo in my brand new Insta Pot.

• I ran for 22 min, 43 sec. 1.37 miles.

TUESDAY -- Cinco de Mayo, acknowledging and celebrating Independence.

• 6:12am = Water bill, meditation, movement, light, window, burnt clove, ginger, hydration, shroom

• I danced around with 1 lb hand weights for 15 min, 36 sec.

• I tried shipping a guitar to my great-nephew-in-sort of-law in Oregon. It belonged to my now deceased boyfriend, although I never saw him play it. I ship you not...it is cheaper to put myself on a plane and hand it to him. Which I would rather do anyway. My hope hope hope hope is that I'll be able to do this before the end of the year.

• I am so ferociously premenstrual. I have been tracking all of my symptoms. With Garmin. The data is explaining so much to me.

@mreddiehuang

@hulu

@ommushrooms

@hostdefense

@garmin

A Page From My Escape Journal

I am sitting on my fire escape at 7:20am. My neighbor just opened her window and SCREAMED at the pigeons, who took their cue to fly away. They are so loud in the morning. Why so loud?

My first grown up apartment was a third floor walk up, right on a corner across from Prospect Park. It was a four bedroom, so my share of the $1,400 each month was $350! These were the days that a bunch of struggling artists could live together, no one cared who's name was on the lease, so long as the rent was paid on time.

To quote my dear friend Mitzi, "wow...just wow."

I currently work in the neighborhood where my first two apartments were. I'm still on leave. I am due to return in a week and a half. And I'm thinking about serving the people, who forever changed my formerly affordable neighborhood. Is it really more desirable right now?

It was during my first major television gig that I got to move out of Mom's house. I completed my degree in Buffalo, while I relocated back to Long Island. We had just lost my dad, and we were a long way off from distance learning. But several professors saw this as an opportunity for me, and had faith in sending me 600 miles away to create my own course of "Independent Study." We all wanted to see me march in time with my class at graduation.

That was all 100% Kaz. Where is my inner Kaz? The Kaz, who managed the men's hockey team for three years.

I was able to complete my documentary filmmaking thesis by bringing a video camera into my post World War II population boom elementary school. My arrangement was made through the assistant principal, who also happened to be my bartender.

Meanwhile, the first graders I captured footage of are now in their mid 30s. And the fifth graders are about to turn 40.

I had another major project to complete in New York. It was for a graduate level class in "Ethnographic Filmmaking." I was one of two undergrads, who were allowed by the professor to take it. My father died three weeks before Thanksgiving break, and not even while grieving for him was I willing to give up graduate credits.

But here's the rub. What the hell kind of culture study was I supposed to document on Long Island. Trust me when I tell you that it would have been the equivalent of watching people walking in and out of an ice cream shop, built on 31 flavors, only ordering vanilla. Cultures are about spice, rituals, customs. It's Eddie Huang visiting Jamaica, and sharing with us food, tennis, the education of young children, and the nations history.

But then it struck me as spring had sprung. I captured my family, but mostly friends' Passover celebration. And thus, I was able to march with University at Buffalo's graduating class of 1991!