I thought I’d experienced the coldest New York winters could get. Yesterday I moaned that it was 18 degrees (F) outside.

I woke up this morning, turned on the news and saw the temperature as 6. My sleep-addled brain temporarily read this in Celsius, as I grew up getting weather reports in that scale. Then I realised with a growing sense of ‘oh shit, really?’ that it was 6 degrees Fahrenheit outside. (Thats minus 14 Celsius for my Canadian and British friends.) We’ll be getting up to a balmy 17 degrees this afternoon, after which tomorrow’s high temp of 36F will feel like a light spring day.

However, it’s bright, sunny and crisp outside, and although I whined at first, as soon as I stepped outdoors to walk to the subway I was invigorated. I was bundled up as much as I could be and didn’t feel too cold, and the sunny sky brightened my mood considerably. If I wasn’t working today, I would have gone for a bracing walk to get some fresh air and get my circulation going. Given mine and Vince’s endless battle with opening and closing windows in the apartment (I open; he closes; I open; he closes; repeat ad infinitum), I can say with certainty that I inherited my dad’s Manchester hardiness. I even use the well-worn Dad phrase, ‘it’s character building’, once dreaded as a child as it meant being outside and freezing your arse off in the guise of ‘exercise’ or ‘fun’. I can now appreciate the way a spell outside in wintry weather makes you feel good.

I was supposed to be going out for the afternoon today to do a private Pub Crawl tour, but I got a text yesterday from our intrepid leader, Eric, that it had been cancelled. While I was looking forward to getting the cash, I was extremely pleased to not be going out in 20 degree weather for three hours.

I have instead spent the day sleeping in after an awesome gig last night (which ended with me dragging my very cold and tired self home on the subway at 1am, when it was 18 degrees), talking to my beloved family in the UK, chanting for an hour and generally being rather snug and warm in my apartment. It’s definitely an indoors day.

Tomorrow: a high of 17 degrees Fahrenheit. I have to go to work. Not happy.

It’s Cold today. The kind of Cold that deserves capitalisation. A high temperature of 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus four Celsius). A HIGH temperature of 25. Right now I think it’s about 18 degrees. Nice.

After a lovely trip to the dentist this morning, I’m going to my Buddhist meeting in a little while. I foolishly promised to play the cello at the meeting and give an experience about playing with the jazz violinist recently. I was excited about it, but now I’m nervous that it will sound AWFUL. I’m not happy with how the piece sounds, but there comes a point where you can’t practice any more. Also, the point of playing at my meeting is to show proof of my buddhist practice – that by making a determination, chanting for victory and taking action, anything is possible. My playing might not be perfect, but two months ago I couldn’t have even attempted the piece I’m playing. So that’s my victory. :)

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Last night at band practice, we were having a lot of fun with a song we’ve been developing for the last year, and in our experimentation we found some interesting ideas to develop it further. Hank commented on how it’s always the stuff you find between rehearsing songs that is often the best, when you’re not concentrating on playing the tune the way we’ve always done and just messing around with it. We also want to expand our covers list, so we and our audiences don’t get bored with the same old songs, and we’ve started compiling a list of potential tunes to learn (feel free to suggest any you like). Our influences and musical loves run the gamut, from my indie-kid leanings to Sergio’s jazz genius and Sean’s current obsession of learning bossa nova tunes.

Towards the end of practice, as we were packing away our gear, we were talking about the impending snowstorm that was due (we got about 3″ last night). Darren, who connects everything in life to music, enthusiastically jumped in.
“Oh man, when it snows I love to just sit inside and listen to Norwegian Death Metal.”
I guess this would be strange coming from anyone except Darren. He doesn’t get depressed and angry when he listens to Death Metal while it’s snowing, he loves the way the music is suited to the climate and gets all happy about it. Yahoteh (our guest drummer for tomorrow’s gig) summed up all our feelings about Darren: “Darren, you are one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met”.

Imagine my delight this morning when I found this awesome story (care of my friend Amy) about a Norwegian boy who scared off a pack of wolves by playing Death Metal at them. In Buddhism, there is no coincidence. You don’t say.

I got a notice about an audition I had submitted for today. Great, I thought. This was a cool-sounding film. I pulled up my calendar and started entering the audition information in, before coming to a halt and searching the (Jersey) address on Google Maps.

The audition location was in south Jersey. Not even Tom’s River – waaaaay south Jersey. I’m talking 20 minutes from Atlantic City south Jersey. They had helpfully provided driving instructions from the city, but alarm bells started ringing when it said ‘take the Garden State Parkway to Exit 63′. Up by NYC, the Garden State Parkway exits are in the 150s. Alarm bells.

I sadly had to decline to attend the audition, as I don’t have the spare cash right now to rent a car and drive three hours south on a Saturday to go to an audition. I wish I could, but I’m curious as to how many people they will actually get to audition down there. Most NYC-based actors don’t have a car or the money to do all that travelling for the possibility of a callback, and the number of film actors who live in south Jersey is significantly smaller than those in NYC. But it comes back to the eternal actors’ dilemma: do you spend money on classes, headshots, meet and greets and travel to auditions in Crazytown NJ, or do you save your money until you can afford these things? A lot of people get into debt trying to do everything at once. I’ve been tempted to just put a class I really wanted to do on a credit card and worry about it later, but ultimately I had to be ok with the fact that I can’t pay for everything right now. I’m saving up for new headshots and a class I want to take, but I have a lot of other financial commitments and not the largest income, so I’m saving now to spend wisely later. It sucks to miss an audition for those reasons, but hey ho. I’m not bothered to be avoiding all the Snookis on the GSP next weekend.