Okay, it's Tuesday and I have a cold sore the size of a grape on my lip, a (group) lunch with a senior vice president of my company and a ton of work to do, but I need to finish this up...

Went snowboarding this past weekend and had a blast. I have been trying to go all winter but so far, each time I have gone locally, it was a total bust (literally, if you bring my busted thumb into the mix), so I had high hopes for this trip to Mammoth. I mean, after my last visit, I basically was ready to give up, because I just wasn't getting it and the whole idea of spending a bunch of money to go up and down a hill, over and over, again, falling throughout, just wasn't making any sense. Thankfully, everything was much more fun and interesting, and I remembered why I was drawn to it in the first place: it was new, it was physical, and it really pushed me outside of my comfort zone. Like, when you have to go down the side of a mountain that literally gives you vertigo looking at it as you go up the lift, you are forced to dig deep and just go for it the best way you know how, right?

I was twittering a bit while I was up there, but basically I figured out how to turn consistently and I didn't break anything. It was a lot of fun, and I was relieved that I was actually learning how to build on what I was learning, run after run. I also came face to face with the limitations of my physical body. Like, I am in shape, but after four hours, I was beginning to make mistakes. Mentally, I was ready but my body was lagging a bit by the time 3pm rolled around. I was carving too hard on my left hand turns, I was hesitating when I should have been committing and just getting sloppy. Of course, when it's that time of day, everyone's kind of flubbing here and there so I didn't feel too badly, but it was still interesting to experience. It's not like I my typing gets worse toward the end of the day, you know?

So, I will post a few pictures of the scenery, but all in all, I'm relieved.

Okay, that was snowboarding. Now we move to acting.

I had dinner and spent the evening with two Broadway actors on Sunday night (along with some other friends). I was talking to a woman who was 75 and had made a living as a stage actor the entire time--she never had to wait tables. She had just come off of playing the Nurse in Medea in Canada, and we had a great conversation about breath and its relationship to intent; she opens up with a wish to the gods and she had initially thought she needed to get the line out in one breath, but then realized it worked when she broke it up with intakes of air. I suggested that this made sense, because often when you are in that "wish making" mode, you pile on wish after wish, and the breath supports that moment, gives encouragement to those wishes--you see kids do this all the time. We had a great chat about this and she remarked that I should be teaching or directing, which, I must say, coming from her, was one of the nicest compliments I've received in years.

Again, it's those moments of validation that I guess I need just to make sure I am not deluding myself, you know? If I can have an evening talking about acting with two fantastic, well known and celebrated actors, where it's a real give and take, then I have contributions that I can make. Now, now...well, I am not sure. I am doing what I can. Tricia remarked that when she got into acting when she was in Australia, it wasn't something that everyone wanted to do, compared to today. Like, it wasn't a career that normal people wanted to pursue, so it was easier for her. So, she got in early..and stayed. But you know what? Even with her experience? She still has to audition. Never stops.

This is a tough time for actors, moreso, I think than any time before. We all know that there are fewer shows being made and fewer movies being released this year, but what you may not know is that many, if not most, of the "good" roles are being offered to movie stars first. If you watch TV at all, you've seen this happening. I've talked about this before, so I will leave it there, but it's a strange time now, to be sure. I'm sticking with it, of course, but I gotta say, it would be nice to get some auditions. All in good time. In the meantime, I can relish evenings like Sunday, where I can listen to stories and experiences and enjoy moments of inspiration that made me want to be an actor in the first place. Inspiration is all around us, we can just get so caught up in our daily lives that we forget to look and listen.