April 1, 2009
I hate confrontation and as such, would like to take this opportunity, and use this as an outlet to respond to someone named Viva*. That's not her real name but on the outside chance she ever reads this I can further avoid confrontation by pretending this story is not about her.
While walking toward a free Diana Krall concert down by the World Trade Center I met Viva. Diana was performing with her quartet and a 32-piece orchestra. She played her piano in front of a huge window which looked out on the Hudson on this beautiful, sunny day. I had a great spot on a nearby balcony and the acoustics were amazing. Hearing her recorded music has always been a pleasure, but seeing/hearing her live took it to another level. It was such a great experience on its' own, that I didn't want or need anything else out of the day. But Viva turned out to be an experience too.
Viva and I met as we were approaching the venue together, both buzzing with excitement to see Diana live, and immediately connected. She told me that she planned to meet a friend for lunch after the concert. As soon as she said this, he called to cancel because he was sick.
It was such a beautiful day, it seemed impossible to be sick and I said so. She said he had been out in the damp air recently and caught a cold. This is one misconception I deem to be particularly dumb as colds are spread by germs, not literally cold air, and it always shocks me that anyone still believes that. How could this smart woman believe that? It was the first contradiction Viva exhibited, but not the last. As the day ensued the true motivation for her friend's absence became evident.
After the concert we walked along the River at Battery Park to the Chelsea Piers on 23rd Street and stopped for lunch. This of course was her idea because of the cancellation. The intoxicating beauty of the walk dulled the chafe of the beginning of her marathon monologue. She talked about how she gained weight... in fact, by the time we reached 23rd Street, I knew everything there was to know about her, and everything she knew. In summary, her self decreed awesomeness covered everything; she was the smartest, most beautiful, most desirable, most gifted, most psychic, expert in EVERYTHING. She is not only awesome-est in this life but all her past lives.
Over lunch she told me about her past lives. Of course in all her past lives she was a queen, princess or someone equally outstanding. She made this clear during that walk, even with present evidence belying that self assessment. She didn't seem concerned with that though. Probably because her awesomeness made her words so powerful, they could supersede anyone else's opinion or factual data. By the time of our late lunch outside at a French Restaurant, I wished that I had called in sick. Philip Seymour Hoffman sat nearby, and his presence turned the lunch into her long audition for him - - at least in her mind that is what was happening.
She is so needy she smothers you with the force of her many past aristocratic lives. The next thing that didn't make sense about her was how this self decreed all-around amazing person felt the need to top any of the few things I was able to squeeze in during pauses in her monologue. Why would she need to do that with all her awesomeness? We talked about men and when I told her about a younger guy that was pursuing me, she talked about her even younger “boyfriend.” That is in quotes because he apparently never knew he was her boyfriend.
Viva met this guy in this lifetime and just knew he was hypnotized by her dancing. He didn't know that he was her boyfriend, and tragically he didn't know that rejecting her would mean rejecting the greatest pleasure he might have ever known. Sadly for him, the 28-year-old boyfriend/bartender banned her from his bar.
After her dazzling dance, she started showing up at his bar - - every afternoon. Although he must have been completely in love with her, he told her never to return again, how can this be? Again the circumstances she described painted a very different picture of the situation as she assessed it. He told her never to come back. She interpreted this as more of a modern day Capulet situation - - outside forces which were against them. She explained how sad he was to have to put an end to their blissful rendezvous in the empty bar. She reached back to Greek mythology to explain why he was too weak to handle his intense love for her.
Some people get banned from bars, she gets banned from bartenders. Well, this one sent her away the last one fled to Hawaii because Washington D.C was not far enough. The bartender currently in Hawaii went there because his bitchy girlfriend "made" him go because she wanted to live there. If only he had known true love with Viva...
The current bartender told her that her daily lunchtime visits to his empty bar sparked gossip among his colleagues that she had a crush on him. This made him sad to be the object of gossip. And it is the ultimate fear of all men to be laughed at by other men- - as taught to her by someone from the hippie commune “Omega Institute” who wrote that in a book, and this fear somehow hearkened back to the time before Christ, and was solidly supported in Greek mythology, according to the author.
Only mythological forces could impel this guy to reject his one and only chance at true happiness. She thought it was so sad that he let this interfere with the one joy and pleasure he'd experience in his life. She didn't entertain the possibility that perhaps her daily regurgitations of bits of lunch spewed from her side of the bar to his, laced with saliva, bullshit and bravado may not only be boring to him but simultaneously suffocating. No, the suffocation theory is only mine. It is what I surmised after my inability to breathe after only a few hours with her.
Our lunch lasted for hours. She ordered dessert and then coffee, Bellini after Bellini, while I shivered from the time the sun sank behind the restaurant, to the moment I finally begged the waiter for the check around 6pm so I could get the fuck out of there. Of course, she was just getting warmed up and wanted to go on to a coffee shop to continue regaling me with her extensive knowledge of the Zodiac, languages, art, science and everything. She used the Zodiac to provide supporting evidence as to why I was the Goddess of winter, sentenced to return to hell once a year, and she was the Goddess Aphrodite who was loved by all. The love that everyone felt for her was the highest form of love of course. In addition to being the embodiment of Aphrodite, she also possessed all the other fairest traits of the other 6 or 7 goddesses listed in the book I MUST read because she read it.
Because our day together was ending, she wanted to make sure that in her absence, I'd know how best to immerse myself in her through independent study. Although she told me I must read this book and a few other books from the Omega institute, she managed to recount one book in its entirety as I stood with one foot on the subway entrance steps thus negating any need to read that one book that I would never have read anyway.
This ultimate Greek Goddess/unemployed actress donned size 8 jeans that were too tight although she “ran” and was a “dancer.” While size 8 is not big, most New York City professional dancers such as herself are a size negative 8. It was shocking how the rigors of dancing could result in arms so spongy that my palm sunk into her almost liquid flesh.
It was amazing too that this Goddess could walk so freely in public without being swarmed by all her worshipers. I imagined she must have recently trimmed the languorous snakes from her mythological hair, leaving her with the patchwork of black and gray hair, which lay flush against the flesh of her scalp framing each nub, thus enabling her movement among us mortals.
My excitement to see and hear Diana Krall in person, must have muted the voice within me that said, “After the concert, you have a very important appointment and must leave immediately, and then just run so she cannot follow you to said appointment, because if she did, she'd tag along to “help” you, because whatever the appointment was about, she was an expert on that subject.”
No, my excitement blurred the sight of the COLOSSAL BORE warning flags. The first one started flying as we were both traipsing past the World Trade Center construction site to go to the concert after we had established that we were both heading there. This equal footing must have thrown her off balance so she immediately rattled off every obscure French jazz musician, poet, and hippie following each one up with, “You know, have seen, heard, or read him/her, right?” With each, No” or blank expression she got in return, the little rice pellets of ego within her swelled exponentially.
It was a beautiful day so I chose to stay in fluffer mode: “You may have gained weight but you look great!” or by soaking the rice pellets with the flattery they required for growth by implying that she was the wisest astrologer I have ever met, clearly the most talented actress in existence, although not a mother herself, she is superior to all those practicing what she has perfected in her mind's eye, she is the smartest, most bewitching, most desirable woman that has ever been alive, and always was in all her past lives. But Aphrodite told me she had an insatiable appetite for food, and her ego seemed just as hungry.
At least the food was great, and I managed to deflect most of her airborne spit. I took two bathroom breaks while she was instructing the fluently multi-lingual waiter on languages she spoke only a few words of, which broke up the time nicely. All in all, it was still a beautiful day in spite of my audience with the goddess of grandiose delusion. I heard Diana Krall, met Phillip Seymour Hoffman, saw Ben Stiller, but I touched Aphrodite on her flabby arm. Just another Spring Day in New York City.
