Breakfast With Tiffany's

!!!!!!!!!SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!

That was the lovely sound that shot at me as I walked into the office kitchen this morning. After days of wondering why I hadn't heard any whispers or planning about my "going away party", there I stood, completely caught off guard and surrounded by the people that had become my family during my two years at the American Cancer Society.

Along with a buffet of bagels and cream cheese was a tiny lil bag that was a color all women around the world have endearingly come to call "Tiffany Blue". I was flabbergasted; bagels, okay yes I understand, that's a persons rite of passage, but a gift from Tiffany's?! That was way too much. Inside the tiny bag was an even tinier box with a silver chain and a butterfly pendant. Attached was a note that read, "We will miss you while you are spreading your wings in NYC, love- FL Dade". If I was a crier, that would have been the perfect moment.

There are very few people that can say they absolutely LOVE everyone they work with and I am fortunate enough to be one of them. We seriously all do get along; there is no competition, no secret whispers, and never a dirty look. We all basically come together to work for the same cause and genuinely have a really good time doing it. We have a plethora of office characters including:

Maria- The Main Boss Lady who's favorite thing to do is say "i dont care, get it done" in a wicked manner and then a second later cracks up laughing with you because she knows the task she just assigned is nearly impossible and then gives you a big ol' hug. She is young, strong, vicious, witty, protective, and always has an open door policy. Even when Im in NY, she will never stop telling me, "Portata bien, Nicolita!" She is the best mentor any young, strong, vicious, witty girl could ever ask for.

Chad- My direct boss who was created in a Relay For Life laboratory and I am pretty sure bleeds red, blue, and purple. Chad is the type of guy who does things months in advance, has a template for everything, sends cute thank you cards for random things, and always has a to-do list. His only expectations from us are that we update our weekly calendars on our doors and buy into his "jenga" games and "point" charts. What does he get from me in return? A vague post it note that I tape onto my wall, if at all, a jenga tower that is only 2 inches high, and not one single record on his "point system" poster. Chad, I know your going to miss me saying " uh oh im scared", " ayeeeeeeeeeee", " ughhh! I didnt sign up for this", "yes, i did, i promise I already sent in my pcard statement! i swear!" Never a dull moment!

Kathia aka Katie- Kathia is my rock. plain and simple. She has done more for me in my 1 and a half year of knowing her than anyone else probably ever will, and I dont mean that as in favors. I have called her during some of the worst days of my life (event days) and she is the one who has calmed me down; it is to her that I owe my love for Isaiah 43:1-3. She is the most devout Christian I know who has a potty mouth worth than a F'in sailor. What will I miss most about Kathia? going to 'pollo' together, making fun of her for always wanting to change parking spots, laughing together at the ridiculous expectations ACS sometimes has, and always eating her food when shes not looking.

Suzanna aka Suzy- My fellow effin democrat. Suzy is the only one who sympathizes for me when I say "ayeeeee but im only 23". We eat sushi together, laugh all day at other people, kiss ass at meetings together, and she is the only one who can blatantly say and get away with "dude, whats up with the no make up today? put some color on at least". Another perk about my dearest suzy? her family owns a cheesecake distribution company who distributes Guava cheesecake! you know that one from pollo tropical? yep, thats them.

Carmen- Carmen and I could sit in her office all day long and go on ranting about whatever subject there is. I tell her my stories and she constantly says " i cant wait till you fall in love, im gonna laugh at you, I was just like you one day and look now im married with a daughter". Fat chance carmy!! jk. Carmen is our Gala manager and I am her secret spy. Whenever I go to another Charity's Gala, I always make sure to take a picture of the center piece and bring back the donor list.

Martha- "Me voy pa' banco", "No te mates mi nieta", "Aye conyo, pero no ves que ya son las quatro?", "pero mira, appurate porque tengo que ser el' deposito", " pero nina me tienes abandonada!" I. Love. Martha. Gonzalez.

Frances- a sweet pea who is fascinated with stories about the men in my life, my hair extensions, and my arguments with kathia and chad.

Angelique- miss bikini model who introduced me to the joys of Clown College jokes.

Franck- the one who I complain to and complain with. We dont even have to speak to each other during assessments and always know what the other is thinking. NY is waiting for you too.

There are way more people in my office that I owe so many joyous experiences to but I gotta keep this short. Erika, Yesi, Johann, Eileen, Rose, Laura P, Laura T, Rose, and Carmen: Words arent enough. Thank you.

Meet Lily Quinn

Lily Quinn is an aspiring 7yr old, Betty Crocker wannabe who spends all day and night baking cupcakes. Thing is, no one wants to buy Lily's cupcakes. Lily has to find a way to make her cupcakes more appeasing to the public...any suggestions?

Lily was created in my mind during a drive back from the Keys with my lil sisters. We were brainstorming about what we would do if we were in charge of production for Halloween Horror Nights and I had a vision of a Candy Land Horror Theme. Apparently we are your modern day Addams Family becase we all seem to have a knack for coming up with really obscene-dark humored ideas . So since ofcourse I cant even write my name in a legible manner, let alone draw a character, I had to call upon an expert, my lil sister Andi, to draw that brilliant creation of Lily Quinn you see above.

Andi is a genius 16-yr old aspirising artist/writer/director/ who is in the Art Magnet program at Coral Reef High School; her artistic brilliance is along the same level of Tim Burton (and Im not just saying that because she is my sister). If you saw us standing next to each other, you would never believe we were related and got along as well as we do. She is whiter than white, wears dark eyeliner that goes way below her eyes, has shaggy funky hair, and her closet might as well be an entire Hot Topic store. We lovingly call ourselves "The Goth and the Diva". Guess who's the diva..

Andi was brought into this world when I was 8. It was July 12th and I was at my best friend Katie's bday party at Hot Wheels about to get up on stage and do the Macarena when my step-dad arrived earlier than expected to pick me up.

"NOO!!! I DONT WANNA LEAVE YET!!!!!! NOT FAIR, NOT FAIR!!! UGH I CAN ALREADY TELL SHES A JEALOUS BRAT!"
(d-d-d-diva is a female version of stupid brat.)

So there went my 8 years spent as an only child. Now I had to share my parents attention with a girl who ruined my friend katie's bday party? I didnt even get to do the couples skate with my then bf danny! Lets just say I wasnt a happy camper so I refused to acknowledge her presense. I just went about my daily business as if nothing had changed and everything was still the same.

Something began to happen though. As Andi and I grew older, I became highly intrigued by the 3 yr old composing masterpiece works of art on the table cloth at Macarroni Grill. She would draw characters that I was pretty sure werent on the Disney movies we had just seen and they definitely were not on Blue's Clues. As the years went by, Andi drew more and more and even began writing short stories at the age of 6. She would run to me with a huge face of excitement every time she wrote anything and I would flip through the 10 page book of 3 lined pages, I started to know that this wasn't just a phase; I knew something was going to become of this, something that would continue on for many ages.

I was right. Andi kept at it, drawing and writing all day long, her mind was always somewhere else; she was in a land we didnt have access to but that I wanted so much to be a part of. As the pre-teen years began, Andi, and others, started realizing that she wasn't your average 10 yr old princess brat. While other girls were playing with barbies, Andi was in a corner drawing Manga and writing tim burton-esque stories. She began to get ridiculed at school and was always left out of the "cool crowd", or as she lovingly refers to them " the robots". Im not kidding you, she didnt even know anyones name because she REALLY couldnt tell them apart.

My mother, being thee most phenomenal person that she is, always comforted her and let her know that in the end, what goes around will always come around and that those that trim themselves to suit everyone will eventually whittle themselves away. The hardest year for Andi were her days at St. Thomas. Whats worse than robots? Cuban American Princess Robots. (I love all my CAPs out there, no hard feelings.)

Finally when high school came around, Andi was able to interview for a position at the Coral Reef Art Magnet program, a world reknown art program full of freedom of expression and fellow artists like herself; a school where its finally cool to be "different". Andi currently has an art website that has over thousands of views and comments and is going to be featured in a national art magazine coming out soon. She plans on attending California Institute of the Arts to pursue her dreams as an animator/writer. Although we sometimes want to go "lily quinn" on eachother and may have plenty of differences, she is my inspiration, my adoration, and above all, my lil gothic best friend.

"You laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at you because you are all the same"

and now for my next act...

There is a certain discrepency in the job description for the Income Development Manager position at the American Cancer Society. Right next to minimum experience required and related skills, they somehow forgot to post that in order to obtain employment, one must be a magician.

Yes, a magician. But this time, instead of pulling rabbits out of your hat, you are pulling $100k events out of your..umm..pocket. Yea, pocket.

Let me tell you were this reasoning has come from. Basically, I have an event coming up this weekend (this is the reason I postponed my move by 1 week; I could have left ACS and had someone else run it but my nobility swept over. ugh.) And this event, which has typically raised an average of 15k for the past 6 years is supposed to magically raise 35k this year. Along with raising this sum of money, I am also in charge of getting a dj, stage, sound system, lighting, bathrooms, generators, etc. all for free.

Why free? Well, when you ask me what my budget is, the answer is essentially zero. Money spent on the event is money that is taken out of the fundraising income. Since the fundraising income is not hitting, nor exceeding, its goal, the money spent on the event must not exceed zero. You get the math? Good. This is when I have to think back to my days at Houdini Elementary and Copperfield College, when we would snap our fingers and magic would happen right before our eyes and girls would pop out of a coffin without a single scar.

As typically happens every "1 week" before an event, I woke up Monday morning with a minor panic attack. Im not kidding, at 5am began the nightmares and cold sweats thinking about how I would pull this off. To add wind to my fire, I still had to get a Special Event Permit from the Permit Nazi's at the City of Miami Beach. Ofcourse any normal person would have taken care of this a month in advance but not I. For some God unknown reason, it is genetically encoded into my DNA that I MUST, and I mean MUST, wait 1 WEEK before an event to get any highly important logistics of an event squared away.

My mom says that I'm a masochist and I love to be stressed and worried. And you know what? I kinda believe it to a certain point. I dont work well, or at all for that matter, unless its under pressure. And I mean extreme pressure. So off I went, I knew what had to be done, I knew it WOULD be done, I just didnt know how. And then came the phone calls..

"Hi Nicole, its Judy from the City of Miami Beach, I went ahead and filed a special event permit for this saturdays event, I just need you to getme the insurance certificate and come sign and notarize"

Okay, so that was eerily easy. I just have to make a simple request to Sandy Salas for a $1,000,000 insurance certificate that usually takes 10 business days to receieve. She already hates me and wonders how I even have a job so how bad can this be?

"Hi Nicole, I had that event on file, please confirm that all the information is correct, this is the last time you make a rushed request"

That call was followed with an abrupt hang up but hey, i think im on a roll here....

"Guess what nic, the MB Convention Center is donating the stage and North Beach is donating the Sound system, and DJ Jumbo said he would emcee pro-bono. Plus, there are already bathrooms on the facility and the lighting wont be necessary since the event ends rather early"

Am I dreaming? Nope, God loves me. I dont say that in a pushy-psycho-evangelist kinda way, I say that whole heartedly from the bottom of my sinning heart. I pray, He listens, He Calms, He. gets. it. done.

damn pigs.

"You can't leave to New York!! There's swine flu going around!"- mom

I mean, did this really have to happen one week before I leave? Why were there reports of outbreaks coming from New York City instead of Sturgess, South Dakota or Irving, Wyoming? Regardless, I'm willing to take my chances. If not finding a job hasn't deterred me from going, then how will a world wide epidemic case of pig-induced death flu?

Speaking of not finding a job, I have a bone to pick with HR employees all over the nation. What is this "required minimum of 5-8 years experience"? Sorry I was 19 five years ago and I apologize even more for being 16 eight years ago. What ever happened to the law prohibiting discrimination based on age? As they say, there is always a way around the system, now you don't have to blatantly say WE DONT ACCEPT ANYONE UNDER 30, "5-8 years" says it all.


So due to my lack of luck with the current job market, I have started to actually be a bit more open minded However, this is all quite difficult when your first job right out of college landed you your own office, your own assistant, and vast array of social networking events in which you established yourself pretty well among the who's who's of Miami all while helping out a good cause, the American Cancer Society. (Oh, the life of a professional schmoozer).

My mom, among many others, pre-warned me a month ago about these "odd ball" jobs I might have to take up during my first couple of months in New York. I laughed all those comments off with my typical "do you know who I am" demeanor. Now, as I anxiously search the Monster.com's and Simplyhired.com's, I have come to realize that might be exactly what I have to do.


I can see it now ...

"Welcome, how many in your party? Please take a seat and a server will be with you promptly"


"Yes, ofcourse I can pick up your dry cleaning, but first Ihave to finish your 7yr olds book report, and type up that 50 page report you dropped on my desk an hour ago"


"Would you like to start a tab?"



Nope. Not for me. No. Can. Do. Thanks, but no thanks.



I'm more of a:



"I'd like to explore some annual giving opportunities with you, are you available for lunch at the W tommorow?"

"Yes, Christie's Auction can definitely participate in our Gala, its being held at the MET this year"

"Can you add another Zero to that check?"

Im an income development professional, dammit! I take from the rich, and I give to the sick, the poor, and the eldery. I dont take drink orders, I save lives! I've applied to JDRF, Habitat For Humanity, American Red Cross, United Way (the american cancer society arch nemesis but hey..i was running out of options), Muscular Dystrophy Association, and a few others. I guess it might look shady when I have a New York address already listed on my resume but my entire work experience until "present" has been in Miami. minor details..


Anywho, I forge ahead. Ready to embrace anything that comes my way, whether it be an offer to work as the Director of Development of a National Non-Prof or a simple Coat girl at some 3rd hand night club. Nothing can possibly stand in the way of an aries girl on a mission....well nothing except a small case of pig-induced death flu.

Letters To a Young Poet

Today was a day full of Mall, Movies, and Music Videos.

I find it strange, and comforting, that when Diana asked me what I did today and I responded with, "I made a couple of music videos," she didnt even question it. Ofcourse I would make a music video, why not? It was a gorgeous day, I had an Ipod, and I had a camera. What type of in-depth, graphic-filled music videos did I make? Well one of them is just of clouds passing by for the entire 4 min of Radiohead- Nude and the other is of a Highway for the entire 3 minutes of Shins- Sleeping Lessons. Amazing cinematography? no. Content? yes.


Christine was my mall companion and Nobbe was my music video co-producer. Christine is the perfect person to take with you to the mall because she can give you a detailed report of every item that has hit the market, I swear she should have her own consumer report website. Nobbe, on the other han,, is a great video co-producer because she is always down for any random idea I have, even though all she did was get mad at me for trying to make a music video of a highway while im driving. such a worry wart that nobble nobbe.

I concluded my perfect sunday with a dining trip to Seika in the Grove. PLEASE EAT THERE. Its a new restaurant in a location that ALWAYS seems to go out of business. Get the Seika roll and the lava cake and then you too will try your best at making sure they are "sustainable during these rough economic times". Keep them in business and I will be your friend.

* * *
Now back to the title of this post " Letters to a Young Poet", a book by Ranier Maria Rilke. I love reading, I love being swept away into another person's mind only to realize that no matter where we are from, how old we are, no matter what we have been through, we all have the same basic human emotions, the same questions, and the undoubted yearning for the same answers.

I am not an avid reader of customer reviews but I immediately bought this book after reading this:

"Written with a simple, elegant, and com(passionate) prose, Rainer Maria Rilke pens a series of letters to a young aspiring poet, Franz Xaver Kappus that contain a stunningly beautiful argument and plea for living an authentic life, that addresses the silent questions that exist in the deepest chambers of our hearts, the grand themes of literature, and hence life: the meaning of solitude and how to love"

I am a firm believer that certain books fall into your life at the perfect moment. They are meant for you to read, right there, right then. You were never not going to read them, they were never not going to be a member on your book shelf. They are there to either guide, teach you a lesson, comfort you, cheer you up; they are there to serve as a template in which you bring in all your experiences and history and read it in your own terms. I say this because of a certain quote I just read; take into consideration, I am leaving to NY in exactly one week and although I am not scared, I still cant help but wonder and question if everything is going to work out. Then I read this...and it all becomes clear.

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the questions. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer some distant day" - Rilke

Goodnight, Sunday. Hello, One Week Countdown.

The Art of Sunday-ing

Step 1. Sleep until at least 11:30am(I'm being generous, I get up at 9:30am and think I slept in)


Step 2. Turn on the TV and give yourself another 30 min. before you start your day. (preferably Nickelodean, TNT, or Bravo)


Step 3. Get Up. Make french toast or eggs, or go to Green Street for french toast or eggs.


Step 3(a). If you go to Green Street and see people you know (it's inevitable), decide whether you will avoid them or say hi. ( or avoid them and then get caught and pretend like you just saw them)


Step 4. Push the thought of Monday out of your head as much as possible


Step 5. Choose whether you will go on a boat, go to the movies, go to the mall, or vegitate all day



Step 5 (a). Make sure one of your favorite friends, or family members, participates in this activity as well


Step 6. Go out to dinner with someone cool. This is mandatory. No good Sunday ever ended with eating dinner at home. That is boring and shall be avoided at all costs.


Step 7. Do whatever else you can do to keep Monday out of your mind.


Step 8. If all the above steps have already been followed, you may now rest easily knowing that
Monday can't possibly be that bad after the marvelous Sunday you just spent.

procrastination at it's finest

UPDATE: I registered my site through http://www.nicolekcunningham.com/, no more
of that prime23.blogspot.com...i thought I could handle the discrepency, but
nope.

okay..this has to be an ultimate low (or high) in my attempt to to win "2009 Proscrastinator of the Year".

I created a blog named prime23.blogspot.com and I didn't even begin to write in it until I turned 24?!


That even rivals me writing my 5-page final paper 18 minutes before class. Thing is, I actually just attempted to create prime24.blogspot.com but it was already taken so due to lack of initiative or imagination, I will just stick to this one. Bear with me and my premature "lieing about my age" stage.

Now why exactly did I finally decide to start writing this blog? Well let me introduce myself:
My name is Nicole, I quit my job, and I'm moving to New York City in less than one week during a RECESSION.

I realized it would be fun to document this process so I could share stories with my parents, friends, and any other voyeurs out there who would find this useless information interesting. I also figured that when I was 35 I could look back at this and see what went right, or most likely, what went wrong.

I decided to move to New York on March 22, 2009. My 24th birthday had just passed and I had recently and coincidentally seen my friend Lindsey who lives in New York at a restaurant. She told me she had a vacant room and a need for a new room mate. Lo and behold, I temporarily got mad at my job, stormed into my bosses' office the next day and gave him my 30 days notice.

Granted, I love my job and everything was fine within 1 day but I realized one thing; If I didn't do this now, I was never going to do it. And moving to New York sits pretty high on my bucket list (along with owning a St. Bernard named Laverne, watching The Godfather, and taking pictures in Paris wearing Aviators(wait, I already did that :)

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