Disclaimer: some facts have been slightly altered to protect the guilty (mainly myself) and some facts are missing entirely (you can ask but I won’t tell) but here is a New York story for your enjoyment.

Cast of Characters:

Lynn (me!!)
Mark (long-suffering husband of Lynn)
Germany
Sotnos
Viggo Mortensen
Pilar Perez
With brief appearances by a cast of hundreds

BY: Lynn, 2002

This all started way back in the spring when I first got wind that Viggo was going to have a showing in New York City in July, 2002. I printed the info off of the computer and gingerly put it into Mark’s hands. (this is where the “I-owe-Mark-big-time” clock starts ticking.) We discussed it – then discussed it some more. We were originally planning to go to NYC in October, 2002, on the off-chance of meeting Gabriel Byrne (obviously, I’m a playa!) and to meet on-line friends from the Gabriel board. Mark said, “make your choice because I doubt if we can pull off two trips to New York that close together.”

I thought about it all right. At this point, my choices were – wait for October on the remote possibility of meeting Mr. Byrne OR go in July for the very real probability of meeting Viggo. So, feeling somewhat sad that I had to make a choice, I took the plunge. The plan was to go to, what was at the time, the public opening of Viggo’s show at the Robert Mann Gallery, go to the book signing and then go to the poetry reading.

Later, I learned that the public opening party had to be changed to a private party because of concerns about space at the gallery. Well, I wasn’t born Southern and full of charm for nothing. My invitation to the private party arrived the week before we were to make the trip. The President of the United States does not have the security that that piece of paper had while traveling to New York City!! I believed I developed OCD while on the trip because of how many times I checked to make sure the invitation was with me!!

Meanwhile, as we were getting ready for our trip, Mark had an encounter with a pesky poison ivy plant. His whole right arm looked like…well, I don’t even want to think about it anymore. I spent a great deal of time in New York standing between his arm and an unsuspecting populace. Trust me, if you need extra space on the subway, poison ivy is the way to go.

Now, for a few non-Viggo related stories about our trip. We took Amtrak from Florence, SC to NYC. I’m not much on flying and really wasn’t ready for it yet (after 9/11) so we thought we’d see how the train worked out. Not a bad trip, I’m happy to report. We arrived safe and sound in the Big Apple on Tuesday morning. We headed up to Time’s Square, bought tickets for “The Full Monty”, went to eat (at a restaurant that Mr. Byrne had had a birthday party in once - didn’t know that when I went in so got a small thrill of perhaps sitting where his Irish butt had sat – this is where I can see that the Looney Tunes theme song is beginning to run through Mark’s head on endless loop), went to Madame Tussaud’s, then saw the show (hysterical – highly recommended).