Opening Night: Skater Boy Goes To Ikea and Wall Street

Author's Note: Hey y'all! Feels like its been forever. A lot has happened since we last chatted. This blog post has more pictures (as promised).

Part 1: "I #$%* with the Vision HEAVY" - Nina

Last we talked, my room looked like this:

I can't believe I was proud of this pigsty.

I was particularly proud of my accent rug and the natural light of the room. The built-in closet was a nice plus. But the room still wasn't me. Well, to be frank, the room was TOO me. The toolbox on the ground, the dining room chair tucked away in the corner so I could hang blinds, the strikingly male lack of a bed frame. I had my vision, but I needed some time.

First on the list was the long awaited wall art. I ended up choosing a set of Van Gogh prints off Etsy because I loved the frames and the colors matched my walls.

Highly recommend this seller! 90$ for 3 pieces of framed wall art is a steal.

But I couldn't hang the wall art yet! I needed to find my bed frame first, so I could know exactly where each painting should be hung. Here is where Facebook Marketplace came in handy once more. I managed to find a West Elm bed frame (2000$!!) for only 200$. It looked great! The only catch was it was located in....Wall Street.

For my readers privileged enough to avoid the hell-scape of driving in downtown Manhattan, I will try and describe the nightmare. Pedestrians are constantly darting across the street (illegally!), daring you to hit them with your car. Bikers are weaving between stopped traffic with a haughty look on their face and incredibly toned calves. Google Maps sometimes loses you amid the skyscrapers, leaving you adrift in a grid of streets with arbitrary one-way signs posted. Massive iron ramparts blockade certain roads, keeping the wealthy insulated from the noisy traffic.

In short, it is the worst place to try and pick up furniture.

I tried anyway, because I am a sucker for a nice bed and even more of a sucker for a bargain. At 8am I put on my newest thrift score (olive suede All-Saints Bomber!) and found the seller, an executive at a luxury fashion brand (of course). My saintly roommate parked her Honda Civic as close as she could (a block away) and for the next 15 minutes braved all the honking horns in Manhattan as I furiously ferried pieces of bed frame into her car.

The final piece of the bed was the headboard, which was not going to fit in the car. So I called an Lyft XL and pleaded my case with several drivers, pushing through each rejection until one took pity on me and decided to help. After leaving him a healthy tip, my sweet, long-suffering roommates helped me move the bed pieces into my room. And then it was Christmas. My first day off since our rehearsals had began, that Monday was my day to decorate. And decorate I did.

It really was like Christmas morning for me.

The finished bed

A bit of a conspicuous gap...we can't have that!

But from this angle the room looks amazing.

At the end of the day, I was proud of how it all came together. The room looked GOOD. There were just a few things missing. The one that bothered me the most was the conspicuous gap above my headboard. Something needed to go there. Since my mom had saddled me with a bag of IKEA returns, it meant it was time for an IKEA run.

My roommates were out that night. After the Manhattan fiasco, I couldn't find it in my conscience to ask for T to take me to IKEA. So I was off to take public transport. Getting there wasn't too hard. Six subway stops and one bus transfer later, I was there. The hard part was getting back. I had bought a full length mirror and a shelving unit (and a new duvet cover and fitted sheets and two (2) plants!), and I felt a little ridiculous trying to walk it all back home at 8pm.

Taken on the subway on the way home

Five minutes into the walk back home after dropping the shelving unit, the thought did cross my mind to call an Uber, but since I hadn't gotten a gym membership yet, I figured this was the next best thing.

Getting home at 9pm, I ran down to the bodega, grabbed a chopped cheese, popped open a beer, and went to town fulfilling the vision. If my downstairs neighbors are reading this, you have my apologies for hammering in drywall anchors at 10pm. I would do it again.

Work in progress

Astute readers might recognize some of their
postcards on the shelf! Please send me more!

And now my room feels complete (mostly). I still have big plans for a bedside table, records on the wall, and a little record player in my room. I still need to hang my mirror on the wall. I still need to put up a bookshelf so my books don't have to live on my dresser. But at least I now sleep easy under well wishes from friends and leafy plastic (yes the plants are fake).

Part 2: Sk8r Boy

The thing I have learned about acting is that the grind never stops. There is always another opportunity, another show, another casting call. This week I found a casting call for a Asian Male Lead(?!) but the casting call said: "Skateboarding experience is a must". So I decided to learn how to skate.

Don't get me wrong! I've skated before, a bit in college, a little in Seattle (Huge shoutout to AM and MB for being the best neighbors I have ever been blessed with). But I've never really called myself a skater. To do that, I needed to own a skateboard. I looked up a local skate shop and asked how much it would cost to set up a new board. When I heard the answer (200$!), I set off to Facebook Marketplace.

It was pouring when we met up


Skateboard scored (50$)!

What a vibe.

I needed to perform a little self-maintenance by swapping the trucks onto a new deck, but when I was done I had a fully functioning skateboard! It even came with a bunch of stickers that made me look like a REAL skater. Just like you can tell a lot about a person from their interior design choices, you can tell a lot about a person by their skateboard sticker choices. The previous owner's choices were...colorful (read: pussy money weed). Still, the board worked fine and I got my practice in over at Marcy Park. Turns out that muscle memory is a hell of a thing and I still remembered how to push, carve, and stop. My only regret is that I didn't buy a pair of beater sneakers--skating in Maison Margiela replicas makes me feel a little guilty.

Needless to say I did not drag my toe to slow down.

Now that I have the skating down, I'm recording the lines for the role tonight! Hope this audition tape goes well.

Part 3: Opening Night

I have missed being on stage. The frenetic energy before curtain call, the warm laughter of a live audience, the goofiness backstage waiting in the green room. Last night was the opening night of our show, and it couldn't have gone better. I felt nervous all night, but as my castmate (a classically trained concert pianist) told me: "the nerves never go away". What we do as actors is go onstage and kill it. And that's what we did last night.

Pre-show: breaking legs


Backstage during the show

A huge thanks to all of the cast for letting me join in the production, and I can't wait to continue this run with you. Tienanmen Requiem runs until March 27th at The Players Theatre in New York City, and tickets can be purchased here. Friends, please come see the show! Message me and I can provide you with a 50% off code.