I can hardly contain my excitement for tomorrow! I'm so eager to begin my June journey and to start my 30 for 30 goals.
In order to prepare for my raw vegan diet, I shopped at the local farmers market to select some of my favorite fruits and vegetables that are in season in June. From the looks of my picture below, I'll be happily "eating the rainbow."
Seasonally fresh fruit and vegetables from the Santa Monica farmers market
I also tested out a raw vegan version of a dish from my favorite Montreal restaurant Aux Vivres. The dragon bowl at Aux Vivres is made with rice and tempeh, so I eliminated them for this variation and it still tasted absolutely delicious. I also tested two versions of dragon bowl sauce, recipes which I found online, but this one was the winner. To be honest, I'm not quite sure if soy sauce, nutritional yeast, and olive oil would be considered raw (my guess is no), but I don't think the raw vegan police will come after me.
Raw version of the Aux Vivres dragon bowl
Lastly, tomorrow will be the launch of our crowdfunding campaign for Unbreakable Missy & Lori. We already have over 500 views on Episode 1 of our series, and we're thrilled at the reception thus far. For fun, I created a post on BuzzFeed entitled "7 Things That Would Be Different If Kimmy Schmidt Stayed In LA Instead of NYC." I've never written a BuzzFeed article before, so it was great to try something new. Besides, isn't that what this month of June will be about for me? June cannot come soon enough!
In less than a week, I’ll be turning 30. To celebrate the
occasion, I had an early birthday party with approximately 30 of my closest
friends and family back home in New Jersey. As if that wasn’t apt enough, the
theme of my party was Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, just like Kimmy’s 30th birthday party episode, though
fortunately my fiesta was a more positive experience than that of the titular
character of the new Netflix original series.
My Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt-themed 30th birthday party
These appropriately synchronous “30”-focused items have
arrived at a pivotal point. To explain, I’d have to back up a bit to note where
the Kimmy Schmidt hype has begun.
Several years ago, while working at Canadian immigration law
firm Campbell-Cohen, my co-worker Matt Cohen looked at me and asked, “Do you
know who you look like?” I’d heard this question before and was usually
satisfied with the follow-up answer provided by the inquirer. I was always
changing my hairstyle and was typically compared to whichever Hollywood
celebrity had a similar look. In the moment of Matt’s inquiry, I was sporting
shoulder-length dark brown hair and bangs reaching my eyebrows. His answer?
“The new secretary from The Office.”
As someone who was familiar with the show but had never seen an episode, I
immediately searched imdb.com to see if I could find the person he had in mind.
While perusing the cast, my cursor stopped on Ellie Kemper. With her similar haircut, I was pretty sure I had found the right gal. I posted on Matt’s
Facebook wall with a link to her IMDB page asking, “Is this who you meant?”
“Obviously,” he commented, and I remember his friend Ally Kemper also
commenting something about her similar name.
I still never watched an episode of The Office after that. It wasn’t until the smash hit Bridesmaids released in theaters that
Ellie Kemper popped up on my radar once again. While watching her onscreen, I
was satisfied that my doppelgänger had a sweet, funny role and didn’t make me
embarrassed to show my face. Though we no longer had similar hairstyles, other
people were now telling me that I resembled Kemper.
Fast forward to 2015. While spending some downtime on
Facebook, I started noticing a few of my friends posting about the new Netflix
original series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
Though I had not yet heard of the show, I was happy to see that Kemper had
nailed a starring role and that my friends’ posts were all positive. Eager to
check out the series, I began watching the show soon during my first available
day. After only four episodes in, and with my upcoming 30th
birthday party on my mind, I sort of jokingly posted on Facebook saying that I
should have an Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt-themed
party. Eerily, a few episodes later, Kimmy celebrates her 30th
birthday on the show.
Now I was enthralled. I had binge-watched the whole first
season and seriously wanted to combine these synchronicities. Since I work at
Famous Birthdays with a lot of web video stars who create viral six-second
videos on Vine, I was inspired by them and thought I could figure out a way to
do Vine videos for my party. The idea wasn’t fully formed, but I started
telling my friends about my thoughts. While telling my friend Missy, we started
discussing creative projects in general that we could do, such as YouTube
videos about things that we’re passionate about. “Missy, I think we should have
a serious business meeting. Let’s set a time to do dinner and we can come up
with some things we can work on,” I insisted. Missy was onboard and I’ll never
forget when we met at Pono Burger on April 1. Missy opened up her notebook and
said, “Okay, so I think let’s not do Vine. Let’s do a web series.” I
immediately looked at her, excited, and with the biggest smile said, “Oh my
god, yes! You are Xan!” I suddenly realized in that exact moment how similar
her wardrobe and look were to Xanthippe Voorhees, one of the characters from the
show. And that is how Unbreakable Missy & Lori was born.
Missy and I agreed to come to our next meeting with outline
ideas for a 10-episode series. We knew that Missy would do the editing for the
project, but didn’t have any other production roles solidified. However, I went
home that night and just started writing and writing and writing. Although I
had never written anything fictional like this before, ideas were suddenly
spewing out of me like volcanic lava. Before I knew it, I had five episodes
written and was excitedly telling my parents and Missy the good news. Though I
was never convinced of the existence of angels before, I was pretty sure that
my grandmother’s theatrical writing spirit was creatively assisting me with
this project. (Of course, coincidentally enough, my grandmother’s maiden name
is actually Missy’s last name, though Missy and I are not related.)
While Missy and I had originally set a goal for 10 episodes,
before I knew it, 17 episodes were scripted for our LA-based parody of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. One thing
after another started falling into place as we began production on Unbreakable
Missy & Lori. So much positive energy seemed to surround us as we set to
work.
The synchronicities continued as Missy uploaded our completed
first episode (below) the day of my 30th birthday party in New Jersey.
Though Missy was in LA at the time, I had the opportunity to debut
the episode alongside Missy’s parents, as well as mine, in our home state.
Now that Episode 1 has launched, I’m preparing for the next
big things arising on my schedule, which include our 30-day crowdfunding
campaign, as well as my 30-day birthday month of June. On my return flight to
LA, I began thinking about the constant reoccurrence of the number 30. With this in
mind, I set to work on a list of 30 goals for my 30 days of June. The final
list is as follows:
1. Work out for 30 minutes every day.
2. Achieve my 30-day crowdfunding goal.
3. Do 30 creative things for my girlfriend Nicole.
