Holly Northrop Blog

Wednesday morning when I first arrived at work and loaded up my browser to check on some email and general nonsense; you know, what has blown up now and what note worthy person has died now, when the very first thing I saw was this article. I busted out laughing and read the whole thing right then. I hit a total and complete perfect 10 on this. Probably not the best thing in the world to hit a 10 on but at least I achieved perfection. Also, Number 9 is an N/A seeing how no one at work is succeeding at anything. Whoops, I will take that back. A few folks are not only succeeding but out-and-out excelling at driving the paper straight into the ground but I would hardly say I am jealous. Well, maybe a little, such obliteration is awe-inspiring if nothing else.

I heard a reggae version of a Bread song four days ago and I can't get the damn thing out of my head. No matter what I listen to. It's driving me nuts. Aside from time, how does one remove a Bread song from the brain? Maybe this can shake it out. I can't seem to stop listening to it. It's has to be all that fuzzed out, heavy and I mean heavy bottom end. So much fun to walk around New York City in this bitter fucking cold weather with something like a mash up between Justin Timberlake and Muse slamming around in old brain.

One night last week as we drove up to the dark part of our street where we live, we noticed that there was a massive crate sitting in our yard. It was like, "Oh my god what the hell is that? What the fuck did you order?" Then upon a few reflective seconds, we realized that it was the new roof shingles and all the supplies for a brand new roof. Cool. But oh shit, that means we have a huge chunk of change that we now have to come up with. No we are not that stupid it's just that things move a little different up here and half the fucking battle was getting on a roofers schedule. We started this whole process in September, (the month that all bullshit starts) and we are just now getting a new roof. Well, not just yet. Should be this week. Right now, the new roof is sitting in our front yard.

I'm not even bothered by the cold snap that has engulfed our area. Seven degrees seems like a perfect time to rip the forty-year-old shingles off a hundred and six year old house and slap down new ones. This house is so old and improperly insulated that I bet if I were to stand across the street at night wearing night goggles with heat seeking sensors that our house would glow a good eight feet out from the walls. It would probably be so bright that it would scar my retinas. I'm surprised all the woodland creatures aren't nesting up against the foundation. If I were a possum, that's where I'd be.

The warmest part of the house is the second floor but once they rip the top off, I suppose that won't be the case. Regardless, the whole process is supposed to take three days, and of those three days, I will be at work every single one of them. Only the cats will be here. And you know, to them it will literally sound like the sky is falling. We're going to come home to some stressed out felines. Oh Zoë, hang in there.

Coming up with the money is going to be funny. Not fun, but funny, odd you know, amusing. We were going to borrow half of the cost from Jazz but she's almost out of grandma money. That's right, I'm thirty-five thousand dollars in the hole for her student loan debt and not only is she not going to graduate on time but she has to go a whole extra year. Grandma's money will be gone by September, (of course) and I'll probably have to apply for another student loan for her fifth fall semester because we will have reached the 10k cap on my dad's trust for the year. At this stage in my little mini rant, I would so like to point out here that her father, my ex-husband, has not paid one dime for college. His dead parents have but not him.

Ahhhhhh. Okay, I'm done. We'll get a new roof and we'll just charge it. Whatever.

Super Boring but Important
Last weekend Martha had an insurance guy come over to the house to talk Term Life Insurance for me. We have a few things in place but almost all of those are in the unlikely event of something happening to Martha before something happens to me. The good money bet is on me but you never know. So this is why we thought we might do a little term on me. You know, estimate out how long we think I might live. What do you think, maybe to seventy ish? It's a good guess. Seventy-five is pushing it and well, eighty is out of the question. Yes, yes it's all very morbid and strange, but the REALITY is that I have maybe twenty good years, (the emphasis on good), left before it becomes an interesting game of Last Dances.

If I die before Martha, what the fuck is she supposed to do? And Jasmine, she'll NEVER be able to get any personal kind of insurance so really, I'm up. All I need to do is pass a drug test. Yep, that's right. So next Saturday morning at 8 am a nurse is coming to the house to take blood and urine. Fantastic and wish me luck, a half a million dollars should make things a little easier for Martha to deal with, right? Of course neither one of them would have to put up with my bullshit once I'm dead so it seems like win-win. It's the least I can do. Shut the fuck up and have someone give them a bucket of cash.

My favorite show to hate is back for its fourth season, The L Word has returned with all of its zany lesbian tête-à-tête and wacky hairstyles.

Just the sentence "Bette is on the run from authorities" that was taken from the episode synopsis makes me giddy like a schoolgirl and revs up my snark-o-meter. And then there is this: "After binging on drugs and alcohol, Shane spirals out of control as she takes off in Cherie's Jaguar and crashes it on the Santa Ana Freeway." Again there are only two things that are fun about this show, Rosanna Arquette (the person), and Shane (the character).

Jenny, who should be forced to live in a box with her own writing being read back to her on a continuous stereophonic loop played at half-speed, sees this thing again. The only interesting part of all that behavior was that it set the bar on just how stupid this show was going to get right out of the gate in the first season. Marina was only in the first season (smart girl) and she aggressively pursued Jenny to the point of embarrassment - I was embarrassed for my TV. But then again this is also the only show that can make Jane Lynch look like a bad actor, completely misuse the talents of Kelly Lynch and pull out an awkward performance from Sandra Bernhard. Cybill Shepherd is on board this season but I really don't have much hope for that either. The only guest actress that has ever appeared on The L Word and remained completely unaffected by the script was Holland Taylor. She rocks but her character is the mother of quite possibly the dumbest rich girl I've ever seen on TV.

The fact that Showtime canceled Huff but this shit lives on, is truly amazing. At least Huff only had one annoying main character. The L Word has twelve. My only hope and I really do mean this, I hope to fuck that the writing does not suck this year. Really, I don't want the Emmy stuff, (not really a worry here) or the difficult but fascinating plot lines —which they have tried and have failed miserably at, I just want this show to NOT SUCK for one whole season. Okay, okay, maybe that is too hard. How about not sucking for one whole episode?

Update: I just finished the season opener, never mind, this show is totally hopeless, although I couldn't stop laughing. Who throws moldy food on the kitchen floor and then rolls around in it? Or what supposedly well informed, hip and happening fifty-year-old pregnant woman ends up at a Right to Life clinic for an abortion instead of Planned Parenthood? Who has an all-out, coked-out bender for days-on-end but only in the bright light of the (supposed) Cali sun? Who goes to a liquor store, hell bent on destruction and buys mini-bar sized bottles of liquor and beer?

What's Your Name, What's Your Number?
The American Community Survey, a division of The U.S. Census Bureau had been after us for weeks now to fill out their survey. First, they sent the questioner, which we filled out, then Martha carried it around in her purse for a few weeks before thinking to herself, "fuck it", and then shredded it. After the deadline passed, the Survey people started calling, which, we all too easily ignored seeing how we never, ever just answer the phone. Then finally, while we were at work on Friday and Jazz was home alone, they rang the doorbell. The only reason Jasmine opened the door was because she thought it was a mail delivery. Instead, there stood an elderly woman with a computer, sounding all-official and wanting to come inside and ask her a bunch of questions. Jasmine only let her in to the entryway because it was raining and she was elderly. Jasmine refused to give her our names, phone numbers and just about any other fleck of information that might identify us no matter how much paperwork or even laminated badges this woman showed her.

Nicely done Peanut, although I would have never let her in the house because I would have never answered the door in the first place but I am much further along in my neurosis then you. But remember before you open that door, give the space the once over, you never know what might be on the coffee table just sitting there waiting to be noticed by the wrong people.

After a few moments of Stone Wall Jasmine, the woman gave up and left her name and number asking if we could please call her, which we did, but she was out in the neighborhood hounding down other paranoid freaks in the broad daylight of an unnaturally warm Saturday afternoon. Finally, late Saturday night she called back and Martha had a nice little statistical chat around commute times and annual salary.

Jasmine ending up staying two extra days last week, not because she loves us and wants to spend time with us but more because no one could pick her up at the airport until Saturday. Why she didn't have this all planned out before the eleventh hour I'll never know.

The house is disgusting and I have zero time to deal with it. Between work, a total nightmare, and my own photography that I am trying to pull together for two different submissions, my commute time and then the general nausea that rolls over me like a blanket, I can't get near the filth.

What is up with the snow? We have NONE. It is the oddest thing. Almost like we moved to North Carolina instead of 30 miles south of Albany. It was so warm Saturday that there was a wasp on my side door. A fucking wasp. Do you know how crazy that makes me to think that the wasps are all ready out and about? WTF? I've been a little afraid of the winters up here and it still could get nutty but this is too much. A few more days of warm temperatures and we'll have to cut our grass.

It's the end of the world.

We finally have a bathroom door. Oh my god I'm so happy I can't even begin to tell you. See, right out of the gate and way before we moved here, Martha had the whole door thing happen. We have not had a bathroom door on the main bathroom since June to be exact. That's right, six fucking months of nothing but opaque red fabric separating all my bathroom issues from the rest of the house. A bathroom that is just steps away from the living room mind you. Yep. I'm so happy, I go in there just so I can shut the door and stand there. It is so awesome.

I guess part of why I am so happy about the door, besides the above-mentioned privacy issues, is that it represents progress. Progress on the house is something that kind of came to a stand still. Oh sure we had several folks come out and give estimates on reframing the door and after many months of nagging frustration we finally picked one. We got on his schedule and he came out and did it. Fucking amazing. We are on the roofers schedule too. This has been another long-term run around the world to get on a roofers list scenario. My guess is that by the end of January we should have a new roof. But for now I am totally jazzed about the bathroom door. Best present ever.

New Day Year
The chef at the Bridges Restaurant had a death in the family so our New Year's Eve festivities were canceled. Although not as devastatingly so as the chefs. The restaurant gave us a coupon for a Murder Mystery event that they are hosting for Valentines Day. Now that sounds like simple fun doesn't it and such a perfect holiday to have a murder! I have heard about this goofy stuff but have never seen it firsthand. I almost can't wait.

So instead of the dinner thing for New Year's we went to friends' house, had a perfectly wonderful, and sober New Year complete with chocolate cake and a few bites of the spiciest sausage that I've ever eaten. I had to eat a whole sleeve of Gas-X in order to keep it together.

I figured we could all use the luck so I made pork with sauerkraut for New Year's Day dinner. Bringing out the German/Pittsburgh thing in all of us. Martha, who grew up in Pittsburgh, swears she never had pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day until she married a true Pittsburgher from Shadyside. Jazz grew up with kielbasa all around her like garland at a yinzers wedding. And me, well I didn't grow up in Pittsburgh, but having spent some serious time there, I have had many a hunk of pork with sauerkraut at the old after hours, members only, Noray Social Club. Somewhere I still have my membership card. For many, many years now it's been known as Donny's Place but I bet not much else has changed.

Ah yes, the New Year's holiday, the last in the seasonal trifecta representing the hopes of a New Year and the end of whatever nonsense that might be going on in one's life. But being the tart little gloomy Guss that I sometimes am and while I can only hope that each year is better than the last, I do feel that a simple date change cannot possibly have an effect on the hogwash that is currently going on.

Jasmine leaves Thursday and I don't think even with a gun to her head she could possibly stay one day more. She is done with us and us with her. Twenty-two is a screwy age to begin with but amplify it even more when the twenty-two year-old is slothful, well then, you have nothing but trouble.

Some definite disconnect is happening with understanding and accepting that she really doesn't live here (or with her father) but she has her own place, space and lifestyle. She understands it on some levels, mostly on the "I get to do what I want" level but not on the thought that if you don't live here and are staying here well then that makes you a guest in this house. And more to the point is that if you are a guest, you do simple things like contribute or help out without being asked, without making me treat you like a child. You are helpful because deep down you understand what a goddamn drag it is to have a houseguest for two-weeks.

But apparently, that whole self-actualization thing is tough going when you are in the early twenties of adulthood. I can't really compare my life with Jasmine's. This is where my understanding stops. I was good up until the end of her sophomore year of college. I do not understand why her grades suck or why she isn't going to graduate in May. She now has to go another year and that just puzzles me beyond belief. I mean I'm not stupid I understand why she can't graduate, she doesn't have enough credits, but it's the other 'why'; the 'Why did you let this happen?" why. I had a whole differently thing going on at twenty-two, granted she was a big part of that, but in six-month-old baby form. My needs and wants then were third or fourth on the list. Not only was she a factor in my day-to-day I also worked full-time and had a husband and a cat that required attention.

Now having raised the child, divorced the husband and moved into the whole backside of middle age with my girlfriend, I'm way more selfish these days and absolutely loath the "Nagging Mom" stereotype she keeps pushing me into.

[Sigh]
Bottom line: she needs to go home.

Ah yes, a New Year.