Holly Northrop Blog

Oh Christ, Jasmine has another tattoo. It is on her right wrist, yes I said wrist. It is the word 'Nana', written in cursive and it is for her grandmother Northrop. Sweet but...[sigh]. This latest inking brings her tat total to six.

As she and I were carrying one of two coffee tables up three flights of stairs this past Saturday, she proceeded to tell me about the final tattoo she wishes to get on her back. She wants the get a large cherry blossom across the whole of her back, and I am quoting her here; "...and as fucked up shit happens, I'm going to have falling peddles tattooed in." By "fucked up shit" she means like, when I die, or Martha, Jim, various pets and so on. I have a frozen smile on my face as I listen to her explain this to me while I walk backwards up flight after flight of sticky concrete, wondering to myself where in hells bells this desire of hers for tattoos has come from. I don't have any and last I knew Jim didn't either. I know it is a generational thing but it's almost like she's been bit by the crazy ink stick. And I am a little worried about her desire to be a living "fucked up shit" list.

Sighing and blinking onward, for now, she is moved in to her cute-as-could-be studio apartment. Martha and I are sore and I have strange bruises on my legs and a huge blister on my right pinky toe. It was touch and go there Saturday night with Martha's back but amazingly she didn't lock up and there were no emergency room visits. See, we don't move anything anymore. Long ago we figured out that it is worth every single penny to hire men for this reason, and this reason alone. Cost has to be reasonable but the expense is ALWAYS in the budget. The only thing I pick up on moving day is my purse and the cats. But not with Jasmine, hell no. So we were the muscle, although come to find out somewhere around the third car load of crap and about the twentieth time up a flight a stairs, that she had friends still on campus (boys even) that could have helped us. Not everyone was gone for the summer. Why she said no to them is not very clear to me. Something about the time we were doing it the one guy had to work and the other guy was still sleeping. All shit I really didn't need to know about. Made that sucky halfway point in the move even more nauseating.

Jasmine has an adorable girl hamster named Leroy. Leroy got a major upgrade in apartment living too. All three of us decided that she needed a bigger cage and a bigger wheel. So Sunday off we went to The Creepy Pet Store. The Creepy Pet Store is rightly named as such because of some very core components. The first thing you will notice about The Creepy Pet Store is its location. It is located not in a mall or a commercial building of any sorts but in a private home that has been converted into a pet store. The home is on a country road near the edge of town and the only way you know that you are at The Creepy Pet Store is the sign out at the road the reads "Live Bait". Outside The Creepy Pet Store is a large pond like structure that has different sizes and species of goldfish swimming around in a shaded pool. Off to the left of the front door is fenced in area with a doghouse and appropriately enough, a Beagle sleeping in the shade. This is the only dog at The Creepy Pet Store. They just aren't that interested in cats and dogs.

Once inside The Creepy Pet Store, the smell of animal hits you like a downwind breeze at the zoo. Your nose hairs curl and you resort to a few short mouth-breathing tricks to help in adjusting to the smell. The room is dark, with hardly any strong lighting from any logical direction. It takes a few minutes for the eyeballs to dilate properly and for those first few seconds you stand there disoriented, sucking air in through your mouth and an uneasy feeling in your stomach with having entered the building. It is at this moment that I am always reminded of Silence of the Lambs.

Once the darkness wears off you can see the general layout of the place. Off to the right side are all the fish. Everything from your basis catfish that was caught up the road to organic salt-water beauties. The sound of bubbles and soft blue hues glow from this area. Straight-ahead from the front door is a room with the rodent type pets. Hamsters, gerbils, Ginny pigs, ferrets, mice, rats and a few things that I never want to see again. This is the room we lingered in for about fifteen minutes discussing the merits of a glass base aquarium with a metal three-tiered stacked caged on top. It was decided that Leroy was getting a McMansion.

But just because you have found what you are looking for at The Creepy Pet Store you can not leave until you wander around the left side of the building. The left side is what puts the creep in The Creepy Pet Store. Over there is where the more exotic animals are. Tarantulas in tiny glass cages greet you as you walk down the aisle towards the back cinder wall. The further you walk the next level of exotic pet is reached. A lizard with a missing left hand strokes the glass continually as you walk by, it's stump making a soft thump as it hits the glass. Large snapping turtles look up at you, straining their necks in case your hand gets close enough for a quick snip. Small snakes share wall space with aquariums, pet toys and leather leashes. Moving forward the snakes get bigger until you come to the snake room. The snake room is a glass room roughly 12ft x 12ft squared. It sits in the right corner with the two back walls made of grey cinder and the two front walls made of thick Plexiglas. On the right Plexiglas panel at the bottom is a small door that hinges outward. Inside the glass room are snakes. Big ones. Big boa constrictors twisted and curled around one another in a ten-foot long snake braid. I notice that not only has the albino Burmese Python just eaten, probably a rat from the other room, but it has recently shed it's skin.

Next to the snake pit is another Plexiglas room only this one has a blue child's pool filled with water in it and the lights are even dimmer. There is only one thing in this room and it is a Caiman. Kind of like a crocodile. At this point, I'm ready to go. Between the smell, the heat and the sounds of far off fish bubbles I am done with The Creepy Pet Store.

The Creepy Pet Store came at the end of a rather long day of very public running about. In one day, we went to Wal-mart, Kmart, Sears and then a quick stop at Pier 1. We lingered in the home section of Sears where Martha experimented with tool belts and I gathered up paint chips. We fondled lawnmowers and I took a photo of Jasmine on a huge riding lawnmower. She said she would mow our yard if we bought the riding mower. "Hey Mom, it even has a beer cozy!" she shouted. We tested exercise equipment and when a sales woman overheard me talking to Martha about he merits of one particular exercise bike she offered me a job. Seriously. Much to my own astonishment I came out of that day, drug free and with only a small pounding headache that easily went away once we were safely in our hotel room.

Ah but yes, let's see, Jazz has a new home and Leroy has a new home within Jasmine's new home. Kind of like those Russian dolls. It was so very good to see her. No matter what, no one can make me laugh like Martha and Jasmine. The constant use of hand sanitizer, chewing gum, running commentary and inside jokes warms my heart and I love every single minute of it.

After it rained all day last Monday and well after I had been sitting at my desk, cold and wet for hours on end, I came home to two notes. One was attached to the elevator informing the residents of my building that there was no hot water and will not be any hot water until after 11:00am Tuesday morning. The hot-water pipe had burst on the roof and now the penthouse was flooded. That can't be good and it probably isn't just the penthouse. All that water had most likely run down the walls to the lower apartments. We live eight floors below that nonsense so I was a little worried. This has happened to us before and more than once. In fact, I almost expect it to happen again.

Anyway, the second note was attached to our mailbox. I had to take that little note and walk over to the doorman and sign for a larger packet of paper. Inside the packet was our new lease, and should we choose to stay in this deluxe apartment in the sky, the management company was informing me of their intention to raise our rent by $400.00 a month. The new rent on our apartment would be $2420.00 plus an additional $160.00 for parking. That's, $2580.00 a month for a two-bedroom in Jersey City. Jesus Christ.

Monday could have been so different. I could almost see the alternate version of the evening playing out in front of me in the dark corners of the apartment.

If we were staying in this luxury apartment, Monday would have been a freak-out fest. It would have marked the start of the apartment scramble and the crazed race to find something that costs at least what we are paying now (before rent hike) with the same amount of space, safety and comfort. The horns would have been blown. There would have been yelling and many, many phone calls to various people who could not help us or give two shits about helping us. My guess, we probably would have called a lawyer.

But, because we are in the middle of buying a house, all that bad vibe stuff just kind of lingered in the air and then faded away. Oh sure, we have to let them know if we are leaving and there are all these crazy rules about how to move out. Extra 'move out' deposits and a general attitude of "fuck off, you tenant you", but we'll work around all that. Frankly, they can kiss my butt. I love this apartment and will miss the view and all that extra crap but not for $2580 a month.

MOMENTS OF ZEN ARE ALL AROUND
Usually, at least once a week but sometimes way more, New York City develops a certain synchronicity that is bothersome. It usually comes together over a two or three block radius before you realize that everyone has taken extra cranky pills that day. It happens slowly. You might look up and just so happen to catch sight of a well-dressed elderly woman aggressively giving the finger to a cabdriver who almost ran her over. As you keep walking, you come upon a group of folks standing near the corner dominating the entire sidewalk while waiting on the 101 bus, behaving as if they are trying out for The Jerry Springer Show. They scream slang and general obscenities at one another while you try to push through the crowd without being smacked in the head. And it's right around then, when you'll notice that you have been walking the block with a fire truck that is stuck in traffic with the siren blaring and horn in the on position. Your eardrums are about to shatter. You make it to the corner where black Lincoln town cars and yellow cabs have created a logjam at the light and the whole city smells like butt crack.

It is the exact opposite of that weird magical moment when for a few seconds the entire area of the city that you are in goes completely quiet. Not a sound is around and it is the middle of the day. It is so quiet that you'll start to hear birds chirping. A soft breeze blows down the street and the sent from the flowers at bodega on the corner floats around you, inviting a smile. If you close your eyes, you will swear you are in the middle of nowhere. Like a swing that has gone just a little too high and is momentarily suspended in the air before gravity pushes it all back to earth, the sounds and smells of the city rise back up to the normal rhythm, only to slowly swing the other way. The screaming butt crack way. New York does this dance all day long, all over the city.

EMPTY
In what is beyond a joke (and well beyond believability) yet another person in my department quit last week. Honestly, I have never seen anything like this and I've seen an enormous amount of shit in this business. We are now down to the final three and goddamn it, I am going for the prize.

Several months ago all the cream was let go from this company and now the whole wing of offices that held the executive staff is empty. It is kind of creepy to walk down that darkened hall with all those empty offices tree-branching off into nothing, but at the very end of this dark tunnel is the executive ladies bathroom and I've got to tell you, it's a whole other private world back there. As long as they keep that door unlocked, I will never use the public restroom on the fourth floor again. I feel like George Costanza.

MOVING JASMINE
This week we will be making the fine, fine trip through Pennsylvania to visit with Miss Jasmine. She is moving into her very own apartment and we are driving there to help her settle in. I can't wait to see her. I haven't seen her since that whole eyeball thing in March but it feels like it's been so much longer. No sure why. Hmm, regardless, I can't wait to squeeze her.

More road tripping but I think this is the last of it for quite some time. The next big drive will be when we move upstate. Okay it's not a big drive but for a car full of two cats and two neurotic woman, two-hours is considered a trip. And technically, it's is three-hours from our current overpriced apartment in Jersey City to the house in Hudson. I figure once we get in the house we ain't going no where. We will have this thing called a yard to deal with, among many, many other things.

On an airplane ride home to Jersey and the journey is a little bumpy, to say the least. An hour before, at the airport terminal we watched a massive hailstorm move through the runway area and freak out most folks waiting on airplanes. The odd thing is that storm was roughly the third hailstorm I have seen in just as many weeks. I'm telling ya, it's the end of the world.

Oh well, at lease I'm closer to God. We are on a puddle-jumper and boy howdy it certainly is jumping. Martha is convinced that we are going to crash. She's had a death grip on my left arm for a while now, her eyes are dilated and she's whispering to me "We're going to crash, we're going to crash." loud enough that the guy across the isle from her keeps frowning at me. I give him my best version of my smile, fuck off, hair-flick look and shift around so I can stare out my window.

Sliding around in the air above Greensboro, NC I look out at God's country and notice that at some point in this airplanes history a Ladybug has died, having been trapped between the two pains of window glass of my window. Now this concerns me on a few levels. First, how did the Ladybug get there? I thought these things have to be sealed, not drafty. Okay I understand we're not going into space here but isn't there that whole 'pressurized cabin" and air mask demo thing? If so, then how did a bulbous shaped Ladybug squeeze through a seam and why, if there is a seam, wouldn't the unseen seam cause a pressure problem? Shouldn't my window crack and then blow out along with my seat and the back half of the plane? Secondly, what does a dead Ladybug stuck in my window mean? I don't like the metaphor, you know, luck and all.

These little puddle-jumpers remind of me of MRI machines. I love to fly and usually don't give a damn about anything as long as I can sit near a window. But after a year of constantly being shoved into a little metal tube, apparently now, I get a little claustrophobic. That little mind game reared it's ugly head last Friday morning after we had been in our seats for over thirty minutes but still on the ground and not going anywhere. Everything was too close to my face, too tight and it felt like there was no air. Panic set in, and not being one to fuck around with panic, I chewed a Xanax and silently talked myself down until the sweet relief of the modification of my GABA_A receptor. Gaba Gaba hey!

CARE
Martha's Mom and Dad are old and crazy. That is the short answer to "How was North Carolina?". Martha's sister came up and while we all had a lovely time together, I didn't sleep more than a combined total of 5 hours in two days. The second night there I ended up on the recliner. I can no longer sleep in a double bed with another person, in particular Martha, who is long and likes to lay diagonally. It was super great and with her sister there, the only other place I could have gone was the passenger side of the PT-Cruiser that we rented. It was a serious consideration at 4am Saturday morning but it was also storming outside so I thought against it.

The long and strange answer to the NC trip is that Martha's mother isn't doing so well. What's making her sick is a drug she is on, Coumadin, also known as RAT POISON. She is having a rare and deadly reaction to it and steps need to be taken to get her off the drug. When the choices are gangrene, open sores that will not heal, possible limb removal and liver failure or the quick click of a stroke, I think I would take the stroke, Bob.

But I'm 43 and what the hell do I know? At 87 and when you were raised to believe in a doctors care and blindly go along with what is recommended regardless of the effects, this concept of challenging your doctor and making end of life decisions is quite daunting, depressing, discouraging and over all a big fucking drag. It pains me in new and different ways to see her in so much discomfort. I feel for her and I love her with all my heart. I love her like a Mom.

Seven days and some 1500 car-miles later, Martha and I have visited New Mexico. We drove the state in a rented PT-Cruiser with unlimited mileage, and boy did we take advantage of that offer. We only scratched the surface but it is such a strange state that it was more like the surface of another planet rather than anything I've ever seen. I shot countless rolls of film that will cost a small fortune to have developed. This is the land where dogs ride in the back of pickup trucks instead of in the pocket of a Prada over the shoulder dog carrier.

White Sands has got to be the craziest uninhabitable place I have ever stood in the center of, not counting the house I grew up in. Bah dum dum. White Sands was just nuts. White Sands is just that, white sand. At least in Death Valley there is earth. I guess, technically, white sand is earth but whatever. I think I burned my retinas.

But I wanted to see it so I applied two coatings of Aveeno 45 sunscreen (I still managed to get a little sunburned on my big fat forehead) and off I went into the white abyss with my cameras. I had preloaded my holga, 35 mm and Lubital in the car well before we entered the area and my intention was to only shoot each camera once and then leave the desert. No film changes, no lens changes, nothing. All that fine white sand blowing around would destroy my cameras even if I got back in the car to do it.

Despite bathing in hand sanitizer, both of us managed to come down with some kind of stomach bug. I felt like shit most of last week with a small reprieve on half of Wednesday into Thursday but by Friday, it all came back in a nasty stomach turning way. Martha was feeling the ills of it all too. I blame the three snot filled, screaming, jumping, kicking kids that sat behind us on the flight from New York to Denver. The math works about right. We sat with them for five hours on Saturday and by Tuesday morning; I was sick and writhing around on the couch crying about it. (I am pathetic.) I could not believe how horrible those children were and how indifferent the parents turned out to be. It was the screaming kid plane and we were directly in front of super kid germs. That entire crew was hacking, even dad who sat directly behind Martha. So classic in its absurdity that I was sure we were being filmed for some kind of psychological study on social pressures under extremely close public conditions.

After a few little hotel stays, one in Albuquerque and one in Roswell, pretty much from Monday night onward, we stayed on a ranch about 20 minutes north of Santa Fe. With no cell phone service, limited dial up and satellite TV with no local channels, we were somewhat out-of-touch. We had our very own Adobe two-room spider-filled nest with a stunning view of the Jemez Mountains and the bunny pen. Peacocks roamed freely atop the buildings and I made friends with a goat who chewed rocks and a supper cute sheep who just so happened to like Triskets.

DIRT: THE NEW YOU
I ever completely lose my shit, the place I am going to run away to is Madrid, NM, population around 149. Up in the Ortiz Mountains and along the Turquoise Trail is the fantastic town of Madrid. I could blend in here like you would not believe. It had such a calling on me that we went back twice, had lunch at the Mineshaft Tavern—twice. They only serve burgers and Frito Pie mind you so we weren't there for the food. Martha bought me a beautiful turquoise ring from a gypsy girl named Raven. We had a wonderful time talking with Raven about kids, drugs and belly dancing.

Tiny Town, run by Tammy Tatt2 on Highway 14 near Madrid was one of the more stunning examples of what all that sun, sand blasting winds and good LSD can do to one's soul. Tammy's Tiny Town brings a completely new meaning to Outsider Art. Or maybe she is the definition of it, seeing how all good art words get sucked up into the conscious of the pretentious only to be scorned by the defining artist.

We stayed for a while, out there, in the hot mountain sun of Tiny Town, walking gingerly around the fire ants, while her cute-as-could-be kitty cat showed us around. Martha left a note (Tammy, you have a lovely home and a super sweet cat too. Thanks, Martha & Holly, NY) and a donation.

We went to the Georgia O'Keefe museum, and all that did was cost us sixteen dollars to get in (another thirty-two at the gift shop), and confirm my cranky thoughts about museums and locking up art behind nonflexible admission fees. But Martha wanted to go, so we did.

Churches seemed to be a big theme for us this trip, as did cemeteries. The bone yards in New Mexico are so colorful and not such gothic sorrow that permeates the eastern graveyards. Love the whole gothic sorrow thing but nice to see a little color and celebration of a life lived.

Toward the end to the trip we traveled down I-25 to Belen, NM (Spanish for the word "Bethlehem.") to check out Martha's dad's property. He bought two plots of land sixty-years ago and pays five-American-dollars a year in taxes. We thought someone should check it out to see if there actually was anything down there and by god, there is a subdivision with people and it appears that they have water and electricity. But oh my, my, my, it is not any place I would ever want to live and honestly, I don't think I would be too welcome there. I'm the wrong everything: color, nationality, sexual preference, you name it. It's not too far from the Rio Grande BUT it is in the middle of a dust bowl. Actually, the whole state is turning into a dust bowl. New Mexico is in the middle of a drought. Like a crazy drought. All the creeks and small streams are bone dry. The Rio Grande is currently so thin; I could walk across it without walking in water over my knees. Its crazy to see this. All bridges have nothing more than dirt under them. Dusty, wind blown dirt balls that swell up toward the clear blue sky. Dirt tornadoes rise up on the horizon like octopus tentacles straight from the devil.

I'm glad we went even if I couldn't sleep very well. I think it was just too quiet. I'm used to a certain level of noise and out there all there is, is the sound of the peacocks walking on the roof and the wind whipping around the clay buildings. My hair went completely flat there. No curl whatsoever. My skin was dry like the desert and no amount of cream would work. Amazingly, I still had hives.

FROM 150 TO 8 MILLION IN 24 HR.
Did I miss New York? No. I can honestly say, that I really didn't. It's the first time that has ever happened. I missed my cats and a few of the modern conveniences of living in a large, cater-to-me-now city but overall, not so much. Usually after a few days west of the Hudson, I start to get antsy but not this time. Probably because I was in such a strange place but maybe because my head is also in a very strange place. New Mexico is not the typical Middle American fanfare. The southern part of the state is hot, dry and wild. Santa Fe is way too snotty for its own good, Albuquerque reminds me of Jersey but Taos, Taos was awesome.

Our last day there we went to Taos, specifically to the Taos Pueblo and we drove up the Cañon del Rio Grande and through an ice storm to get there. Once we pulled onto the reservation, the sun came out and the weather was chilly but pleasant. We paid out entry fees of twenty-dollars and five-dollar camera charges to step back in time.

The Taos Indian people live on the Pueblo with no running water; there is a stream that they use that comes from the Blue Lake. They have no electricity but they do us propane in the church, and the only source of heat is an adobe fireplace in each home. The rooms are small and a strange-layered system is in effect on the one side of the town. Ladders are used to get from one home to the next. Kind of like a condominium but without the elevators.

Upon leaving the Pueblo, the heavens opened up again and we drove through another ice storm down the mountain, following the Rio Grande all the way back to our ranch. I was starting to think that the ice was a time portal and any minute I would see a dinosaur moving about in the dark shadows of the side mirror.

Ah yes, but now we are home and the sound of peacocks has been replace by screeching car alarms and sirens. Our apartment is completely covered in cat hair and dust. The cats are well and Lily spent our first night back pacing around the bed, bitching at us all night long. I hardly slept at all. She hates it when we leave, because she hates the boy babysitter. She's so salty about it all that she bit Martha in the middle of the night. We must be punished.