High and About to Be Unemployed

Dear Diary:

After 15 minutes spent waiting in the rain with a dead phone, Robbie finally found me. We walked back to his place, a two-bedroom Harlem walk-up with a third bed in the main room that was made of plywood and inexplicably stood about 10 feet off the ground. It held a 20-something male whose connection to Robbie or his middle-aged father was never made clear.

We sprawled out on the couch and smoked a spliff, which was why I had agreed to come uptown this late, even though I had to be in Connecticut at 5 the next morning for work.

“I have to catch the train,” I eventually said, floating on air. “The last one leaves at 1:55.”

We walked to Harlem 125th, without umbrellas. By the time I was on the platform, I was bone-tired, soaking wet and very stoned. So much so, in fact, that I got lost in my thoughts and failed to board the train, even when a door opened inches away from me. I came to just as the train was leaving, and cursed loudly.

I had no choice; I got on a 2:05 train to Stamford, and there found a cab that would make the 30-minute drive to the Westport station, where my car was parked.

Ninety minutes, $75 and one headache later, I pulled into my parents’ driveway. The clock on the kitchen counter read 3:30, half an hour before I was supposed to wake for work. I decided to stay up and wait out the time, sat down on the couch, and promptly passed out until 7:30.

I was fired.

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New York Today: Colder Than Montana

Richard Perry/The New York Times Make it stop.

Good Tuesday morning to you.

It is a relatively balmy 26 degrees this morning.

In Montana.

Here in New York, it’s 13 degrees.

The wind chill is once again near zero.

And we’re wondering when, if ever, winter will end.

Today is the ninth unseasonably cold day in a row, and the 23rd in the past 29.

Over the last six weeks, the temperature has averaged 29 degrees. That’s six degrees below normal for New York. And only a couple of degrees above normal for Great Falls, Mont.

It will be chilly and gloomy here this afternoon, with a high of 28 and a curtain of cloud drawing slowly across the sky.

But there is hope. The forecast high in Great Falls today is 43. That warmer air is making its way across the country.

By Friday the temperature will crack 40 in New York City. The sun will return. High temperatures should be in the low 40s through Monday.

Still not quite normal â€" we should be pushing 50 by now.

But it will do.

Here’s what else you need to know.

COMMUTE

Subways: Check latest status.

Rails: Check L.I.R.R., Metro-North or N.J. Transit status.

Roads: Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.

Alternate-side parking is in effect today but suspended tomorrow for Ash Wednesday.

COMING UP TODAY

- Next stop on Mayor de Blasio’s quest for universal pre-K: Albany. He speaks at a rally at noon.

- The Alliance for Coney Island begins its search for 500 seasonal employees, including potato choppers at Nathan’s. [Free, register for time and location]

- Or audition for a part as a Lower East Side resident from 1914 in a musical planned for May, “The News,” at Downtown Art. 4:30 p.m. [Free, call for location]

- Steve Buscemi becomes the “King of Mardi Gras” at the Two Boots Mardi Gras Ball, a benefit at Le Poisson Rouge in NoHo. 6:30 p.m. [$35 and up]

- Some tickets remain for Paul Simon and Sting at Madison Square Garden. 8 p.m. [$50-$255]

- Opening night of the five-day Queens World Film Festival at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria. 7:15 p.m. [Free, with a party]

- An exhibition examining the history and cultural significance of the biker jacket opens at the Museum at F.I.T. in Midtown. [Free]

- George Packer talks about his book “The Unwinding,” which won a National Book Award, at Community Bookstore in Park Slope. 7 p.m. [Free]

- For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.

IN THE NEWS

- Oil money: $19 million in grants from ExxonMobil is coming to Greenpoint as part of a settlement for the neighborhood’s gigantic underground oil spill. [New York Times]

- Facebook photos - of small mountains of cash, for example - led to the arrests of 10 reputed gang members from the Bronx. [Daily News]

- The only black member of the Police Department’s elite scuba-diving unit says he was racially taunted for seven years. [New York Times]

- Take a peek at the children’s playroom in the attic of Gracie Mansion. [New York Times]

- Look out, Jughead: Lena Dunham will write a four-issue series of Archie comc books. [Gothamist]

- Scoreboard: Pistons pound Knicks, 96-85. Nets tame Bulls in Jason Collins’s Brooklyn debut, 96-80.

Joseph Burgess contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till late morning.

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