I can’t seem to stop the urge to start crying. I’ve been walking aimlessly around my apartment, tears poking me behind my eyelids for absolutely no reason, but not certain how to get the sensation to go away. Not certain what’s causing it. Suspicion but there’s no proof, as the man in the crowded house says. Failure to ground New York City’s powerful energy? As soon as that thought enters my mind, it slides back out again. I forget that I ever had the thought and return to walking in aimless circles.
I know part of it – everything was perfect ... except me. And the weather. As soon as I left the apartment on the 4th of September, I was flying on a magic carpet, albeit a limp and soggy one. I think we – and by "we" I mean the residents of the East Coast - were in the remnants of Hurricane Isaac. Hot, stifling, humid, miserable.
If anyone were to ask me, I would say that the concert started for me at about 3:00 in the afternoon, when Amtrak hissed to a stop at Penn Station. I commuted most out of Times Square (the 1 to Van Cortlandt Park) and later the Port Authority Bus Terminal than Penn Station, but Penn Station was still so familiar it even smelled the same as it always did. The other part of it may be that I’ve fallen headfirst into my own love poetry. An absolutely terrifying place to be, lost in your own unrequited love poetry. As soon as that thought occurs to me, I start holding back tears again again. Not that I wanted HIS love, particularly, but that I found myself to be so pitiful.
I had said that the first thing I planned to do was inhale energy in big gulps and that’s exactly what I did ... we drove up 10th Avenue, through Hell’s Kitchen, past the back side of the Lincoln Center Library complex, onto Amsterdam and jogged left, pulling up in front of the Beacon Theater. All the way north I was inhaling deeply, whispering, "Please heal me." Everything felt welcoming and safe, despite the high heat and humidity, which was enough to flatten you in seconds. When I was here, days like this – especially when the AC in the subway went on the fritz – liked to have killed you, but today it felt familiar and perfect.
I tried to remember why I left in the first place. Oh yeah. That annoying necessity of life: work. After glancing at the Times’ Help Wanted section recently ... I conclude I’m still better off, opportunity wise, in the Boston area, but damn! I am still so miserably homesick for New York. Even on days like this.
The hotel, by the way, sucked: room the size of a closet, no amenities, no ice machines anywhere, no ability to cool the room down unless you were in it – i.e., as soon as you left the room, the AC went down, and you had to re-cool the room every time you returned. The process was so slow, I had to step into a cold shower to cool down every time I came back to the room. And for this, they charged a huge amount of money.
You walked into a dripping sauna every time you walked outside. I made a few acquaintances, and after picking up our tickets agreed to go out for dinner, only to find lines out onto the sidewalk. Change of plans. We wandered into a local beanery, just to get out of the heat and humidity.
Naturally, this wouldn’t happen in a million years if I were hoping and planning for it – but the very first man we ran into, just walking in the door, was Piero’s father. Next, a lovely older woman who wanted to know if we were there to see her nephew. After I raised both hands in the air and swore I never touched her nephew, I got around to asking who her nephew was.
Oh, her nephew was PIERO! Well, that put a new slant on things. Bless the women, she had no idea how much I was there to see her nephew. Surrounding the two of them were a handful of other Barone relatives – I have no idea who they were, cousins maybe? Huge and loving family who obviously adored Piero, these Barone’s. After that, there was no time for dinner, so I wandered back to the hotel to try and reapply all of the make-up, which had run off of my face in the high heat. My hair was hanging on the sides of my face in wet ringlets. I look at myself in the mirror and ordered my dream to come true. Just looking at the ticket number didn’t really tell me how close to the stage I was, but ... I dunno, Row B seemed pretty close. I cast about 20 spells that my dream – i.e., that I never had to worry about him seeing me and could just enjoy the concert without feeling self-consciousness and miserable – would come true.
And my dreams came true! Thankfully, Row B in the Beacon Theater alphabet is not the second row; it is the fifth. Apparently, and I’m certain solely under the force of my powerful witch’s spell, the Beacon invented a new alphabet, where "B" was the 5th letter. Might have upset some people, not me. The moment I saw the seat, I practically danced with joy. There’s NO WAY he was going to see me back there. And as far as I know – until he grabs me on a street some day and yells, "I know you! You were in the fifth row in the Beacon Theater!" – (in Italian, that is, in which case, I might just stare at him stupidly) - he never did.
Note to self: casting spells that people not see you when you really don’t want them to, actually works!
Friday, September 07, 2012
I cannot believe it is Friday already. I have been recovering from the lack of sleep I enjoyed on the 4th ... yesterday I would wake up, putter around for 2 hours and sleep for the next two. Did that all day. Tomorrow I run off again for an overnight stay in Boston. Today I have to pay homage to the endocrinologist by getting my blood sucked out of me, or she’ll withhold all of my medication. Love being held hostage by doctors.
I was also thinking of getting my hair cut today.
To finish up New York: There was, for me, only one man on that stage. This is no reflection on the other two – they are wonderful. But Piero ... cameras don’t do him justice. He has the most exquisite face, the most heart-fluttering, rakish smile, the most delicious high-powered sensual energy that he exudes. I never saw the other two, there was only Piero. I spent most of the concert with my eyes fixated solely on him.
I could see why girls propose to him, declare their undying love for him, want to follow him to the ends of the earth – he’s that intoxicating in person.
After belatedly grounding the powerful NYC energy sparkling and thundering around inside of me – geez, no wonder I was such a mess! – I feel much better. Rule #1 of magick: always ground the energy you raise! I had forgotten that, too.
Saturday, September 08, 2012
Il Volo now in Boston, by way of Westbury, Long Island. The endocrinologist neglected to mention that she had prescribed a fasting blood test, not a regular one. I hadn’t fasted ahead of time. We had to reschedule: this morning at 7:30 a.m. in Haverhill. I contemplated reporting her to ... whatever organization it is that you complain about idiot doctors to ... for messing up yet another peaceful Il Volo concert day, much like VIP Nation had stressed me out for the first one. Hit the road at 7:00 am and made it to the lab at 7:30. Hit so many potholes speeding back to North Andover, the "service engine soon" light came on. Oh, of course it did! I’m ignoring it for now.
Supercuts had already destroyed whatever thoughts I might have had of enjoying a Meet & Greet with Piero. They’d chopped my hair so short I looked like ... well, let’s put it this way: Gertrude Stein’s heart would have leapt for joy upon seeing me. I, on the other hand, went back to my car, banged my head on the steering wheel for a while and cried my eyes out when I saw the result. I’m hoping to somewhat ameliorate the result with either lots of make-up, lots of dangly jewelry, lace, a push-up bra, eye-popping cleavage and a diving board nailed to the side of a bottle of perfume. Or maybe all of them combined. No, then I’ll look and smell like a brothel hooker who just got diagnosed with head lice.
It doesn’t matter anyway. As my facial nerves began to reawaken – I assume that’s what they’re doing – the entire right side of my face began to twitch. I was staring at myself in the mirror before I left and watched in horror as the eyelid, nose and chin area all began to twitch simultaneously. The effect was astonishing, and I looked like I had a serious nervous disorder and required large doses of tranquilizers one might use on a charging rhinoceros. At least that side of my face was moving again. New York City had done something amazing to me when I asked her to heal me. Unfortunately, because of the power behind the transformation, it was uncontrollable and startling when it did.
Monday, September 10, 2012, post Il Volo Boston concert
Again recovering. This is a more difficult recovery, because it was the last concert until ... who knows. For this Boston concert we all needed to construct an ark. Not just rain, but a typhoon: thundering downpour, and wind later clocked at 50 mph in Boston, blowing rain sideways through the concert arena, the stage, the performers and the audience. A few songs later, the three members of Il Volo were actually inspired to break into a spontaneous chorus of "Singing in the Rain". Make-up ran off my face in rivers. I looked like a drowned raccoon. Of COURSE I did. I wasn’t even surprised anymore at my increasing state of hideous.People to the right of me started shrieking as water poured off of the roof on top of them. I don’t know if Piero could see or hear them from the stage, but he had just started "The Theme from Love Story" when it happened, seated on the stage riser. I could see his eyes flash left, more in curiosity than anything else, because I suspect he saw some audience reaction but wasn’t certain why he was seeing it – but he kept singing, as wind and rain blew across him sideways from Stage Left. Such poise that boy has ... more than I do, that’s for sure – I promptly ducked, expecting a rare New England F5 water spout to hit land at any moment. He, on the other hand, didn’t even flinch. He really is fearless.
Afterwards, I swore that the first thing I would do after kicking the bucket would be to kick the Sky Sadist in the nuts for this stunt alone. Wait until Il Volo appeared and then level me with Bell’s f**king Palsy and all of its horrendous side effects. Then have Supercuts ignore a simple set of instructions and turn me into ... I can’t even describe it. Then douse me with water – AGAIN! I did go to the Meet & Greet – not to meet him, but to see him off stage – and he was as beautiful off stage as he was on. Calm, peaceful, beautiful. I left before the boys got to me, and went back to the hotel. I couldn’t bear to meet any of them with this grotesque buzz cut and the broken, dripping face the Sky Sadist painted on me.
I really need something to break this curse.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
I dread anniversaries of September 11. Guy in my (North Andover) apartment complex stopped me as I was going grocery shopping to urge me never to forget 9/11. I glowered at him in disbelief. Like I’m ever going to forget the day that still gives me nightmares. I hate this day. I hate peoples’ obsession with this day. I hate all the TV specials. That is the day I can point to as a direct line of causality to my being trapped in exile in Massachusetts – not many people remember that the New York economy tanked after that, and I had to find a new line of work. It’s the reason I acted like a neurotic asshole when the Boston Red Sox sent an air force jet over my head to celebrate the opening of the baseball season, and I cursed the entire franchise and prayed for their immediate destruction – from my fetal position on the ground in Cambridge.
On the other hand, I can generally ignore all of the nightmarish memories because of the beautiful weather – it’s now cool, crisp and perfect. I opened all the windows and am basking in the freshness.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Meanwhile, back to Mr. Signpost. His book is being released in 5 days and Penguin Books is holding a drawing: send in a question that Johnny Depp will ask Damien, and you’ll get a copy autographed by both of them. A mischievous thought flickers through my head briefly, followed by the inevitable self-correcting ridicule which tosses it back out again, "No, you can’t ask him the incubus question now, you idiot!!!" Darn.
I seem to be surrounded by quotes from other contexts that I wish I could send to him. Two of my favorites that made me think of Damien as soon as I heard and/or read them:
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." Jonathan Swift
Sometimes you can only find Heaven by slowly backing away from Hell." ― Carrie Fisher, "Wishful Drinking".
... although maybe that second one applies to me as well.
Since I’ve gone back to work, I’ve also gone back to reading on the train. All sorts of things. I pulled out my old Latin primer, and am stumbling around muttering fascinating pronouncements like, "Ego poeta et non nauta!/I am a poet, and NOT a sailor!" – in elementary Latin. Not that I expect to be proficient any time soon, I just thought it might eventually be useful to know ecclesiastical Latin if I wanted to read the old vatican nonsense on witches of days gone by.
The doorbell rings and some delicious perfume I could have used to compensate for the Gertrude Stein buzz cut arrives. Those who’ve followed this blog know that I am usually enchanted by the silliness of perfume descriptions – which I find about as entertaining as the even sillier descriptions of fine wines – the latter of which is completely driven by the "ew" factor, as well as being unintelligible, most of the time. I still remember one of my favorite Spanish tempranillo wines described as "redolent of tar and pungent dirt" or something disgusting like that. And it was heavenly, the best wine on the planet that year. Go figure. (And tasted NOTHING like tar or dirt).
Descriptions like that make you want to toss professional "wine reviewers" off the nearest cliff and then toss an "Acme" safe right after them. Meep, meep. And then dump a piano off that same cliff onto the perfume advertisers.
Anyway, here’s a partial description of this particular fragrance:
"The fragrance inspired by love and romance ... an audacious chypre with a citrusy freshness and a jasmine heart. Sprinkled with fruity notes and underscored by the elegance of patchouli, this chic and daring fragrance is a new classic." Italian Mandarin Essence, Egyptian Jasmine Absolute, Indonesian Patchouli Essence. Pure. Precious. Elegant.
Riiight. So, basically: orange, jasmine and patchouli. Audacious? Daring? These are among the three oldest fragrances on the planet – how did they become "audacious" and "daring"? Like no one’s ever heard of them – or put them together – before. And how are they "precious"? They smell heavenly but they’re as common as dandelion fluff.
I look up jasmine on Google: Jasmine is used to treat depression, insomnia, nervous tension and infertility. Its aroma is soothing and calming and can bring about a restful state to those who are suffering from emotional trauma. It is said to act as an aphrodisiac.
Well, alriiiiiighty, then!! Wait, how can it be both an aphrodisiac AND bring about a restful state? Aren’t those contradictory? You’re restful but horny? Overwhelmed with lust, but have an urge to sleep it off? I don’t get it.
Patchouli, apparently, also works on depression and on the libido ... er, while it’s repelling bugs, and making you pee every five minutes.
Patchouli oil stimulates the replenishment of skin cells, so that it is very valuable in speeding healing and preventing scars from wounds. The therapeutic uses for patchouli oil are in fighting depression, to kill bacteria and cleanse wounds, to enhance sexual desire and performance, to cleanse oily skin and hair, repel bugs, deodorize, and rid the body of excess water.
But first I run to the bathroom with a small bottle of patchouli oil, not to pee, but to smear it all over my head scar. WHO KNEW??? And why didn’t anybody tell me this before I went running off to New York City and into bayside Boston?? (*sigh*) I don’t know if it will work, but my head scar is quite fragrant now. Finally, Orange:
Orange oil is a good diuretic and is most useful in balancing water retention and obesity. Its lymphatic stimulant action further helps to balance water processes, detoxification, aiding the immune system and general well-being. For the digestive system, orange oil can help with constipation, dyspepsia and as a general tonic. It is also useful in cases of nervous tension and stress.
Why is everyone insistent on getting water out of me? But you can sorta see why the copy writer chose to avoid some of these homeopathic properties: if it helps to alleviate both constipation and water retention ... the best copy you could get out of that would be something like, "lose ten pounds in 10 minutes on the porcelain throne!" which might make the FDA raise a few official eyebrows.In any event, despite the questionable advertising copy – which is not the fault of those who actually made the perfume itself – this actually is a delightful fragrance. Really. I’m turning MYSELF on, that’s how aphrodisiacal it is.
Riff between Piero and Ignazio on Piero's difficulty with English, specifically pronouncing the word "world". They were about to introduce a solo by Gianluca when they did this. Westbury, Long Island.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
The Asormos.
The First Day of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Gathering of the Initiates. I can easily imagine how excited those initiates must have been, when this day arrived. Everything in the world stopped for these Mysteries. Wars stopped. Travel to Greece that might have been banned at the time, was now allowed. The buzz in the air was audible. Preparations had been underway, and now there was no time left. The Mysteries had begun.
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