Nycfreelancegirl's Blog

Temping aka getting paid to blog and do nothing

nycfreelancegirl — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:43:26 +0000

So I am working at Greenhill once again until 9pm tonight and the phone has rang a total of umm 0 times. It’s been 2 and a half hours. I’m not expecting a busy day. I had a wonderful Christmas! I went to my hometown of Oklahoma City and got snowed in from the big blizzard of 09. My mom and I were snowed in for about 3 days. The third day we got out and went to a couple stores when we probably should have just stayed home but we got out anyway and I got the car stuck at Target. Ha! That was fun. We had a lot of fun, though. Drinking mulled wine, relaxing by the fire, watching Christmas movies, eating Christmas dinner and leftovers, eating sweets, and knitting. It was great. I am back in NYC now and feeling recharged and ready to go. I am very excited for the new year and I know there are going to be very exciting things to come! 2010 is going to be a really good year and I have a plan and goals to set into motion. I have so much to be thankful for and feel so blessed to have my friends and family and career that I love. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and have a happy new year!!
Also, I am starting a disciplined running plan that I am very excited about and I hope to run in a half-marathon in October of 2010.

joie de vivre!

Temping away the day…

nycfreelancegirl — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:46:04 +0000

Here I am in the middle of New York City working reception at a company of which I know very little about. The phone has rang about 5 times since I arrived here 3.5 hours ago, but I have no problem with that because I would rather just play on the internet to pass the time. After this job, I go to another office a few buildings down to temp until 9pm. It should be about the same story there: surf the internet, eat some free snacks and drink some free coffee, answer the phone a few times, and then leave! After work I am going to the gym where I will attempt to run more than 5.5 miles, but I am just shooting for 4 or 5 today. The second mile is always the toughest… I guess this is true with a lot of life’s situations. It is easy to start something, and then the actual work begins. Once you get over that first hump, though, you start to have fun and just enjoy doing what you are doing. I am on vacation starting Friday and I am so excited!! I will be going to my hometown of Oklahoma City and visiting friends and family there and having Christmas parties and eating yummy food and just all of the stuff that makes the holidays such a wonderful and magical time. Christmas really is my favorite time of year.

We are throwing a little Christmas come & go soiree at my mom’s condo on Saturday for all our friends and family. My mom is preparing lots of great hors’d'oeurves (or however you spell it?) and I am making wassail (mulled wine cider) with sliced apples in it. It is so delicious and smells the house up nicely! I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season and I hope this is reaching at least a handful of people out there in cyberland!

joie de vivre!

I auditioned…

nycfreelancegirl — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 04:17:06 +0000

And got the part!! I got the role of Cassie in a musical short film called “The Scene”. It is being made by a group of students at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. It’s a comedy with a really funny script that is actually ‘sung’ so it’s pretty cool. I am excited because that is one more credit for my film resume which I need to build up. My plan is to build it up and join SAG within the next few months.

Tomorrow I record in the studio and then we film on Saturday.

Thursday I have an Alumni dinner at a restaurant in the city with UCO Music theatre Alumni from my alma mater the University of Central Oklahoma. Should be fun! And I never say no to free food/drink!

joie de vivre!

This crazy life I lead…(Also Happy Thanksgiving!)

nycfreelancegirl — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:45:53 +0000

So…things are going really well in my life right now and I am trying to stay busy and take advantage of all of the extra time I have on my hands. I am rehearsing once a week with this rock band of which cannot be named and also taking voice lessons from the wonderful Maria Fedorova. Hopefully I won’t get in trouble for naming her name. Contracts can be so intimidating…

I am trying to keep as fit as possible without keeling over and while still being able to enjoy food, because I rather like it. I have started running pretty regularly and I am up to 2.25 miles in a session. I want to keep increasing this and hope to be able to run 5 miles in the next 6 months.

I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving and ate a lot of good food. I had what I like to call a good ole’ New York City Bohemian Potluck Thanksgiving!! Everyone brought something–I made mashed potatoes which turned out very well–and we all gathered at a friend’s apartment on the Upper West Side. We lit candles, had egg nog, wine, mulled wine, AND apple cider (spiked) And had a wonderful dinner. I love coming together on Thanksgiving with old friends and making new ones. It’s a time to just be thankful for life and love and the simple things. After a nice big meal (I wish I could have eaten more actually!) we played a round of “Spoons”. It’s a fun game we used to play back in Youth Group at Metroplex Fellowship Church of the Nazarene in Oklahoma City. Cards are dealt and once you get 4 of a kind, you discreetly grab a spoon and other players follow and the person left without a spoon loses. So you gotta be quick. It’s good old-fashioned fun.

Anyway, now that Thanksgiving is over, I have to do Christmas shopping and I leave for Oklahoma on Dec. 18th. I’m excited to see family. I love Christmas so much.

Until then, I will be rehearsing and working on a bunch of dances that I am supposed to know in case I am called to go out on tour with the group which will remain unnamed. So life is pretty exciting and I am working on going up the ladder in this career. I also finally finished the film I’ve been working on and off for the past few months. It’s a little independent feature and I had the lead role which was cool so I can’t wait until it’s completed and I can watch it and make fun of myself! haha. Goals for the next few months are to get new headshots, get an agent and possibly a manager, and possibly join SAG since I am eligible… Still trying to decide if it is the right time to do so.

End note: Getting paid to do what I love is priceless and I am so extremely thankful to God for that.

Joie de vivre!

The Wedding Gig that ended badly…

nycfreelancegirl — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:17:36 +0000

I had a gig at the Hackensack Golf Club on Saturday, October 3rd. I got there by train and had to walk up a very steep hill with no sidewalk to get there. I saw a guy ahead of me a bit and he looked like he could be looking for the same place…Come to find out he was and his name was Thomas from Tennessee, just moved to NY 2 months ago. We kept walking together and a limo came up beside us and I swear I imagined him stopping to pick us up and lo and behold he did! He was heading to the Golf Club as well and drove us a few blocks there. So we got to ride in style for a few hundred feet at least.

The gig itself was good and easy and we got a lot of breaks. Thomas and I both didn’t have a ride home so we started asking around just to see if someone could by chance take us home. The drummer Michael volunteered to take me home to Hoboken which I was very glad about.

Well…after the gig his mood seemed very annoyed with taking me home. He asked as I was getting in his car “how were u expecting to get home tonight? And said “You should really think about getting a car if you want to keep doing gigs” He was very rude and I was thinking, ‘well if you didn’t want to take me home why didn’t you just say so?’ So we start driving and he’s making small talk and being slightly more pleasant which I am happy about. Yet, there is still something off about this guy.

He doesn’t really know his way out of Oradell, NJ, where we were so he phones his wife or someone and she looks it up on the computer and we turn around and I think everything’s find until we hit a dead end and he’s all frustrated again. He calls his wife again as we turn around and then he gets quiet and I’m like ‘oh great’. Then he pulls over all of a sudden and asks very frantically, “Is this the station where you came in?” We’re stopped at the Oradell Train Station. I answer, “Yes, but there’s no more trains tonight.” Then he says, “I’m going to have to let you off here I’m sorry, the computer went down and I don’t know where I’m going and now I’m going to have to drive around forever to get home.” I was shocked! “Um…okay…there’s no more trains.” “Don’t forget your mic” (Gee thanks.) “Get home safe” he tells me before he zooms off. I stand there not believing that this grown man–middle-aged mind you–just left me on the side of the street in a town where I’ve never been at 11:00pm! You just don’t do that!! Anyway…so I called a car service company and ended up paying $75.00 for a cab back to Hoboken. Could not believe it. Seriously guy, if you didn’t want to take me home, you should have just said so when I asked earlier!

The End

Audition- Catch Me If You Can-the musical

nycfreelancegirl — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:00:24 +0000

Woke up very early October 1st for the Equity Chorus Call for this new musical, which frankly I don’t understand turning this movie into a musical but whatever. I got all ready and get there and wait a while and turns out they weren’t seeing Equity! Booooooo! Oh well, at least I went. Afterwards I went and got my little soy latte and rehearsed a bit.

My first trip to Atlantic City…and Stone Harbor

nycfreelancegirl — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:45:25 +0000

So I went to Atlantic City on the way to Stone Harbor with Brian and decided we would just stop into a casino or two just for fun and to look around. First stop Caesar’s Palace which is not much of a ‘Palace’ on the inside, but it’s got what you need in a casino. I wanted to scout out the machines and see if any caught my eye, which I did, and Brian was like “We can go to Trump Plaza if you want.” So I replied, “Alright”… As we were walking out of the casino, we passed by the I Dream of Genie slot machine and I was like well I guess I could just try this one for fun… So I put in my 5 dollar bill, hit the max credit button ($.75) and one Genie lamp came up, then two, then to my astonishment a third!! My jaw dropped as the credit started to rise and rise and RISE! “Oh my gosh!” Brian and I were both like ‘when is it going to stop!?’ And the theme song played on… It passed $300 and I was like whoa…then $500…finally stopping at $629.00! I definitely hit the cash out button because that was enough for me! I hit the jackpot on my very first spin in Atlantic City… What a day and what a memory! It was the perfect start to a wonderful trip to the shore with Brian and hi parents. I definitely recommend Stone Harbor to anyone wanting to get away from the business of life and slow down for a few days. Especially after Labor Day, the town is quiet and charming and right on the beach. With many cute restaurants and boutiques open there’s lots to do or not do!!

joie de vivre!

Beware of the perfume-dousers at Bloomingdale’s!

nycfreelancegirl — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 03:00:27 +0000

Bloomingdale’s is having some kind of huge sale because when I went in there today it was INSANE!! It was seriously like the day after Thanksgiving and everyone wanted the new hot pair of shoes from Marc Jacobs or something. People were in a hurry, little sock booties flying everywhere (the little panty hoselets they give you to try on shoes) women giving other women dirty looks as they try on shoes, frantically searching for a pair that fits. It was like a Vera Wang sample sale. I tried on my boots just fine and definitely needed a 7 1/2. Those things are SO tall! The heel is over 4 inches and there’s a platform. And I’m supposed to sing and dance in those?! Whoa… I will definitely have to walk around in those a while before actually performing in them. So, after I tried on my Miss Sixty ‘Nadia’ boots, I walked out of the store and past those perfume ladies. You know, the ones standing near the entrance and the escalators saying “Forever by Calvin Klein”? or whatever. Well normally I would just ignore them and walk by but I saw that the lady was spritzing samples of Very Hollywood by Michael Kors and I really like that scent so I ask for a spray and she went craaazy with the pump spraying it like 5 times and doing little waves with her hand trying to look all graceful or something. I walked out of there smelling like I had bathed in it. Oh well, maybe I made the subway smell better.
So I am back in cozy Hoboken, waiting for Brian to get home and watching “Georgia O’Keefe” on Lifetime. It’s a kind of biographical movie-really good-starring Joan Allen. It’s a very good movie and really interesting. I just got back from a vacation and now I am going on another one, tomorrow, to Stone Harbor. So I will unpack a bit and then pack again! I am really excited to go to the shore since I’ve never been to this part of the Jersey Shore, only Belmar and that was a long time ago. I am packing: My new sundress, another sundress, pair of jean shorts, jeans, swimsuit, cover up, pj’s, 4 pairs undies, bath stuff, contacts/contact case, toothbrush/toothpaste, magazines, books, snacks for the road. I bought some really healthy snacks at the A&P tonight- dried fruit, wheat crackers, dried apples with no added sugar or anything, Acai juice, & pita chips!

Gonna wait for Brian to get home now. Hope we have internet @ the shore! haha

joie de vivre!

Back to NYC

nycfreelancegirl — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 04:21:56 +0000

I’ve been visiting Oklahoma City, my hometown, for a few days and now it’s time to head back to the Big Apple tomorrow. I have to rush from the airport immediately to Bloomingdale’s so I can try on some Miss Sixty ‘Nadia’ Boots -which are absolutely amazing if I do say so- and see what size I wear so that I can inform my voice coach/director/point of contact for the group I’m singing with which will not be named. Because I’m not allowed to name it in a blog, which I apologize for being repetitive, but just wanted to reiterate. So I will rush from LGA to Bloomingdale’s, then back home to Hoboken, and try to find my kitty a cat-waterer so that my boyfriend and I don’t have to worry about him being fed or watered while we are on our little vacay!! We are going on holiday to Stone Harbor which is just South of Avalon along the Seven Mile Beach on the Jersey shore. My boyfriend Brian’s parents rent a shorehouse every summer and we are going for 4 days…Aaah a vacation after a vacation…how marvelous is my life. And I am NOT ashamed to say so. Life isn’t marvelous all the time, but when it is I don’t think we should be ashamed to scream it to the heavens!

I bought a purdy dress to wear at the shore also and I’m gonna bring some cute comfy sweats to wear on the bus and some cute shore-type clothes to wear around town. Brian’s parents will be there also and they’re taking us out for seafood dinner one night-can’t wait! I am so happy I actually have money to spend while I am there too, but I will be frugal. I repeat: I will be frugal, I will be frugal.

After our shore trip I am filming, “Tipping the Scales” the day after we get back. It’s a film I’ve been working on and it’s almost wrapped completely! All of my dialogue is finished except for some voice-overs and lying in a hospital bed so I’m pretty excited! It was a long process–2 weeks of filming every day-all day, but it was so much fun and such a great experience. And I played the lead role which I was very proud of. The character is Malya, a young Orthodox Jewish Woman who is learning that everything she does–be it big or small–affects everyone in a pretty big way. Lots of metaphors and kind of dream sequences and a fairly good script. I will be excited to see the finished product which should be around the Springtime, close to Easter, or Passover…

So, I film the day after we return from Stone Harbor and the next day I have a wedding gig somewhere and the next day I have rehearsal, well a read-through actually, for another film I’m doing- a short film- called “Smell Me Now”. It’s a comedy that I’m doing with Brian and it’s being directed by the same team which directed and produced a film he was in about a year ago called “Twitchell”. “Twitchell” was hilarious and Brian was so amazing in it!

So after rehearsal I start a new week of auditions, temping, and possibly getting new headshots… Stay tuned

joie de vivre! xo

I’m so bloggerific…

nycfreelancegirl — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:17:29 +0000

So I’m not going to do the whole “it’s my first blog how exciting!? Come up with something ultra-deep and profound because it’s my first one and I want to impress people kind of a thing” ummm no.

I am, however, going to say that I am very excited about this blog because I have been wanting to get it going for a long time! I live what I feel is a pretty cool life and fun and exciting things tend to happen to me so I figure I should share it! I also get myself into some awkward and hilarious situations which are indeed entertaining.

So I moved to New York City just 6 days after college graduation. Got my little Bachelor’s degree in Music Theatre from the University of Central Oklahoma and I was outta here so quick you would’ve thought I’d been planning it for years! And, well, I kinda had. I was dreaming of living in New York City since high school or maybe even before that. I remember visiting when I was only about 12 or 13, stepping out of Grand Central Station for the first time and seeing the towering buildings and smelling that cool crisp air in the fall. I was mesmorized.

But I will get to all that later. Let me tell you what I’m doing at the moment. I am first and formost a singer. People always ask “what do you sing?” And I sing everything and that’s what I tell them – Music theatre, opera, rock, pop, country, jazz, etc…- everything!

Sidenote: I just got back from a trip to Oregon and I am extremely sleepy and it’s 2:15am so I think I am going to go to bed…but I will definitely work on this tomorrow!

And it’s tomorrow…I have just enjoyed a fun-filled evening with my Oklahoma girls out for dinner at Ted’s Mexican restaurant and then karaoke afterwards where we tore it up! I sang some Heart, “Alone” specifically, and we sang ABBA and some other classics. It was cool and some guys hit on my and told me they have a recording studio and want me to lay down some tracks. What a line! At least, I’m pretty sure that was a line because that would be just too weird if they were legit producers sitting at a poe-dunk bar in Oklahoma. Anyway, I took their cards and will e-mail them, just in case. You never know when an opportunity is going to arise in this business.

So, as I was saying, I am a singer and an actress from Oklahoma and now living in the big ole city of New York City. I am currently working as a wedding singer on the weekends (which is very lucrative and I have no shame in saying I am a wedding singer, thank you very much) and I was just hired by a very prestigious multi-platinum artist which I am under contract with and can not reveal their name in a blog as stated very specifically by the contract so I will just have to keep you guessing!

I am visiting family in Oklahoma and my mom and I went to Oregon to visit my sister and her family and just got back last night. I have one more day in Oklahoma and leave to return to NYC on Saturday. It’s hard sometimes being away from family, but I know I gotta let live ya know and I feel like I’m doing the right thing and really getting out there and living. I have had so many amazing experiences thus far in my 4 years living in New York City and I know this is only the beginning… Going to sleep now…

joie de vivre! xo